John D. MacDonald

The Plunder Five

Chapter One

Scrap-Iron Team

Jad Harrik stood in center court of the old gym, his scowl black, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. The place was silent except for the slap and squeak of rubber soles on the hardwood, the bounce of the ball, the sighing of winter wind around the eaves.

He blew hard on his whistle and the ten men panted to a stop, breathing hard. Jad found it hard to believe that this was almost the same squad with which he had taken the conference crown the previous year and played the invitation game at the Garden.

Almost the same squad. Only Henry Martinik was gone — Henry of the fabulous one-hand jump shot, the lightning pivot. Gone also was his twenty points per game, his dogged competitive sense.

“You went downcourt that time like a lot of firehouse clowns,” Jad said in a bitterly quiet tone.

He glared at his center, Stalk Coogan, product of the Iowa high-school basketball mill. A yellow-thatched six foot seven. Originally the nickname had been Cornstalk.

“Coogan, on that formation you’re the floating decoy, and I don’t want you to work yourself loose. I want you to keep the defensive guard occupied.”

Coogan shuffled his feet and said, in a low tone, “Okay, coach.”

Jad switched his glare to Ryan Zimmerman. Zimmerman was an even six feet, a hard-muscled boy with endless bounce. Jad made his tone wheedling. “Please Mister Zimmerman, in that formation your job is to head in toward the basket, cut two steps back out again and screen the defensive guard. The purpose of the move is to create a pocket behind you so that Ricard can sift in, half pivot and take the pass from Bobby Lamb. Is that too much to ask?”

“No, coach,” Zimmerman said.

Jad wheeled on Frenchy Ricard and roared, “And where were you, if I may ask? You weren’t three feet out of position, or even six. You were twenty feet away! You want them to stand there and wait for you?”

“I guess not,” Frenchy said uneasily. He was a lean, dark, nervous boy, with quick sure hands.

“Well, it’s up to you, all of you. We can keep running that sequence from now until the cows come home. When you’re doing it right, we’ll try something else.”

Jad took the ball, called the two centers over and threw it up for the tap. King Miller, the second-string center, got the tap and fed it over to scrappy little Harlan McGuire, the second-string forward. Jad Harrik moved over to the sideline and watched moodily. The play roared up the floor with Ryan Zimmerman diving onto a bounce pass, stealing it, forking it over to Frenchy who dribbled down, pivoted, passed it out to Lamb who got it away fast to Stalk Coogan floating outside. Stalk took a set shot and the ball whispered down through the strings.

Taken one by one, or collectively, it was a good squad. Chunky Ben Cohen and the phlegmatic, unemotional Bobby Lamb were the guards, fast with the ball, canny on defence. Bouncy Ryan Zimmerman and dark Frenchy Ricard were forwards who could think on their feet, on the way down the floor. Stalk Coogan, at twenty-two, had eleven years of competitive play behind him, and could shoot with effortless ease from any contorted, off-balance position. All of them were seniors except Cohen, a junior, and the proof of the merit of Stalk, Lamb, Ricard and Zimmerman was the way the pro scouts were nosing around, hoping to get another Henry Martinik out of tiny Nyeland College.

Jad Harrik groaned inwardly as he realized, anew, how much he missed Henry.

But a man had to make do with what was available. He watched them, weaving the endless patterns of offense on the floor. They called Jad Harrik the Giant Killer. Little Nyeland had killed the chances of many giants of the court circuit. Harrik’s constant goal was fluidity — flexible offense plus a Combination zone and man-for-man defense — plus that ‘cuteness’ that could only be reached by tireless practice.

He frowned again. What was the answer? When he had known that this season would be played without Henry, he hadn’t felt too badly about it. It hadn’t been one of those squads built around a stellar performer, greased and oiled to make one man shine. With Henry it had been a compact and joyous unit, doing battle with gusto. Jad hadn’t felt that it would be too hard to work Coogan into Henry’s position. Stalk was as natural a player as Henry, equally fast, lacking only Henry’s almost frightening will to win.

But here, at mid-season, with the schedule so stiff that it would have been wiser to schedule the lightest of workouts, he has having to pace them as though the season had not yet started.

The conference title was not yet lost, but it was fading. The quintet had played raggedly. He knew they were trying hard — possibly too hard. Eleven of the wins had been by a one- or two-point margin. And one of the losses had been by twenty-one points, the worst beating any Jad Harrik team had taken in the past three years.

There was no consistency about them. For four minutes they would rack up the points, stealing the ball beautifully, hooking the backboard bounces, attacking with blinding and bewildering speed, bringing heavy-throated from the crowd, and then, as soon as it had come, it would fade away and they would turn sucker for the clumsiest feints, make awkward fouls, permit themselves to be sucked out of position.

He watched them work themselves into the pattern, coming down the floor, for the screen play again. This time Frenchy slid into the vacuum, took the pass from Bobby Lamb and went high with a beautiful one-handed hook shot that dropped clean.

He blew the whistle. “Coogan, Cohen, Lamb, Zimmerman and Ricard, call it a day.” They walked tiredly off the floor. He heard Lamb and Cohen laughing as they went down the corridor to the shower room and pool.

He bounced two more balls out. “Miller and McGuire, go down to the other end and work on set shots.” King Miller, the second-string center, was the weakest of the lot. Scrappy little Harlan McGuire, sophomore, would be first-string forward next season, and a good one. Jad was working him into the games whenever he could. The other second-string forward was Dandy Ames, a casual, lethargic, handsome boy who always seemed to float rather than run. The guards, Angus Petrie and Bill Jones, were competent workmen, without brilliance.

He stared at them for a moment. “You three practice your passing, two at a time with the third man guarding. Alternate every once in a while.”

Jad walked over to the first row of benches where his assistant, Paul Frieden, sat. Paul was young, lean, serious. He worked hard, made few comments, but when he d id speak, was to point. Jad sighed as he sat down.

“What do you think, Paul?”

“They’ll have to do better tomorrow night against Western. That’s for sure.”

“What’s wrong with ’em? Can you figure it?”

“No.”

“They should be good. Tops.”

Paul shrugged. “They aren’t a team, that’s all. But they want to work as a team. Nobody wants to shine or build up a national rating.”

Jad stood up and glanced at his watch. “Keep ’em moving until quarter to six and then call it a day.”

Jad Harrik turned his overcoat collar high against the bitter wind and trudged across the campus, his head bowed, his gray eyes bleak. The street lights came on as he crossed the icy ruts of the Faculty Lane and turned in at his front walk.

Martha heard him come in and came from the kitchen into the front hallway. The look of her always lifted some of the burden. He kissed her. “Hello, girl.”

She cocked her head on one side and studied him. He had to grin. “Still no answer?” she asked.

“I wish my legs hadn’t quit on me. I wish I was back running myself to death with the pros, honey.”

Harrik was a tall man, wide and heavy in the shoulders. His face was square and emotionless. Eyes and jaw were hard.

He took the evening paper in and sat by the radio, opened the paper to the sports page. The basketball column was written up by George Lion, and it was titled Lion’s Cage.

The big question will be answered tomorrow night. Can Jad Harrik’s Nyeland Deuces get by Western in the most important mid-season game of the schedule? At risk of not being able to go out during the daylight hours, your columnist hazards a loud NO. Forgive him if he remarks that this year the Deuces are wild. When Henry Martinik left, the ace in the pack, so did Jad Harrik’s chance of his second conference victory in a row.

Western is rough. We’ll see topside basketball tomorrow night. Their center, Big Chris Link is one of the top scoring men in the business. Barry Towner and Huck Finnegan, the men out front, have dazzling speed and well-coached deception. Farley Howell and Steps Jerome, the guards, seem to have more arms and hands than that Indian goddess, Siva. They’ve been running wild the last two weeks after a slow start.

However, just for the records, we have been looking over the past performances of the Deuces. Man for man, their records are as good as the Westerners. There seems to be no reason for the ragged play and poor timing we’ve seen thus far from last year’s conference champs. Poor team morale? Poor training? Coaching? Tell us wha’ hoppen, Jad. We’d like to know.

Jad flung the paper aside. Things were not panning out the way he had intended. It had all been so clear, his planning. When leaden legs had forced him out of active play, he had looked around with great care. The quickest way to the top of the coaching business, he decided, was to achieve a spectacular improvement in one school. Nyeland College, with its worse than mediocre record, and with big schools on the schedule, looked like the place. Also, Nyeland was willing to set up five athletic scholarships a year for the basketball squad.

Jad had saved his pro money, as much of it as he could. He and Martha had talked it all over. Nyeland couldn’t pay him very much. During the first season he had made Nyeland a little more impressive. The second season the results began to show more clearly, and Nyeland was a rude shock to the larger schools, ending well up in the conference ratings. And the third year, with Henry Martinik fully developed, they had been the conference champions.

There had been offers. One very good one from a university on the west coast.

Jad had said to Martha, “I’ve still got good boys. I can swing the second championship in a row with them. Then watch the offers roll in.”

She had kissed him. “I’m glad, Jad. I wanted another year here.”

“Why? Honey, you need new clothes and we need a new car. This place is costing us money.”

“No, it isn’t. We’re even saving a little.”

She was tiny. He had picked her up then and swung her in a big circle. “One more year in this dump and then we’ll really roll, baby. Right to the top!”

He picked the paper off the floor, smoothed it out, and read Lion’s column again. Damn the man! And damn the mysterious something about the squad that was keeping it from functioning at peak efficiency. He had a trapped feeling. If this year was mediocre, no big school would give him a second thought. They would say, “Harrik? Oh, he had one good season when he had Martinik. More luck than coaching.”

Basketball was Jad’s meat and drink, his dreams, his work, his preoccupation. He realized ruefully that it was all he knew. Or wanted to know. And that one little thing about it that he couldn’t fathom was going to keep him trapped in this... this third-rate little jerkwater college. Jad Harrik, the Giant Killer. Lion had called him that and it had caught on. Now Lion would have to think up a new name...

“Soup’s on!” Martha called. He went into the booth, diagramming, in his mind, a pivot and feedout that might shake Coogan loose. Coogan would have to break toward the basket, coming in from the left of the free-throw circle. The zone man would pick him up there. Then Coogan could jam on the brakes and cut behind the defensive man. Then Frenchy, taking the pass from Ben Cohen, could feed it out to Coogan. If the defensive man on Frenchy had smelled the feedout, Frenchy could feint and make the try himself. Then Coogan, coming in again, would be spotted to tip it in if it looked bad...

“It’s getting cold, darling,” Martha said.

“Huh? Oh, sure. Sorry, baby.”

They were packed from the sideline benches back up to the high windows, and on the mezzanine balconies every seat was taken. Jad Harrik, with Paul Frieden beside him, sat grimly on the squad bench on the Nyeland side. The plump little red-headed coed with the pixie glasses was leading a Nyeland cheer, punctuated by the boom of the bass drum of the five-piece Nyeland swing band.

Western was on the court, casual and competent, dribbling, passing, dropping deadly set shots through the net. When they wavered, Big Chris Link came up with effortless powerful rebounds.

A roar greeted the Deuces as they came trotting out across the floor, under the lights. They warmed up and Jad could feel the gut-straining tension in them.

“Tight,” Paul said, beside him.

The extra men were called off the floor, there was that few seconds of breathless hush as the official tossed up the ball, and then a long scream as Link tapped it off to Finnegan, the Western forward. The Deuces raced downcourt with Ryan Zimmerman picking up Finnegan. Finnegan looked, feinted, fed a backward bounce pass to tall Barry Towner, then, with a flash of speed, got around Ryan Zimmerman, pivoted in the slot just in time to take Towner’s perfectly rifled pass. Stalk Coogan was there to try to slap it down. Finnegan feinted, forcing Stalk to jump, and then he went up as Stalk was coming down. All very pretty, very competent and very disheartening.

Bobby Lamb dribbled it back upcourt, but he was cornered against the sideline and had to freeze the ball into a tap. Stalk got the tap over to Ben Cohen, but Ben’s pass to Frenchy was too hurried. Howell, the Westerner guard, rammed himself into the line of fire, gathered it in and with the same motion gave it a side-arm sling across court to Link. Link took it beautifully all the way, feinting a feedout, then turning and going high, rolling the ball off his fingertips into the hoop.

Frenchy sank a set shot he should never have tried, and then Stalk was given two free throws on a personal foul by Link, tying it up. But the Western offense, rapier-swift, probing, retreating, striking from the unexpected angle, ran it up to 12-4. Nyeland called a time out.

As soon as play was started, Link was called again for a personal foul. Coogan sank the free throw. Finnegan made a beautiful steal of the ball from Ricard, slapping it down, diving on it and scooping it over to Link as he fell. But Stalk, with a sudden flash of brilliance, went high on defense under the basket and whipped it, one-handed, out to Ricard who had already started up the floor. Ricard took it over his shoulder, dribbled it fast, foot-feinting the defensive man, going in on a sole hook shot. The score was 12-7. In rapid succession they built it to 11 and then to 13. In the last seconds of the half Chris Link picked up yet another foul, and Nyeland took a two point lead, 14–12.

“If they can keep on—” Paul muttered.

But they didn’t. Western came back with four beautifully-executed counters in a row, only one of them wavering on the rim for a moment before Link floated up and gave it the necessary nudge as Stalk tried vainly to hook it away. Farley Howell got a free throw, and then Stalk got another, missing the chance.

Western cut in fast and Stalk snatched the rebound, pegging it out to Ben Cohen going up the sideline. As Jerome cut in toward Cohen, Ben reversed, slung it on a low pass across-court to Ricard. Ricard took it in, pivoted, fed it out to Cohen who had cut across. Cohen came back and dropped it effortlessly.

Then there was deadlock. Three times the ball was frozen behind the ten-second line, and each time Nyeland won the tap. The tension grew and grew and the Nyeland rooters mourned aloud as Western scored on a wild one-hander from the corner. The tally seemed to take the starch out of the Nyeland defense. Towner, Link and Jerome took the scoring burden, roaring, wide-open, into king-sized gaps in the backcourt, taking unchallenged flings at the hoop.

There was a bad pile-up near the Western bench and Chris Link pulled himself to his feet, took a step and nearly went down. Western took- a time out. Link tested the ankle, wincing. A boy named Howard Stacks replaced him. Jad watched Stacks with narrowed eyes. The keen edge of tempo was suddenly gone from the Western offensive. Stacks was tall, but without bounce. On static defense his long arms and big hands were busy, but his feet were nailed.

On his first opportunity, Jad replaced Zimmerman with Harlan McGuire, with orders to spread the defense and try to run around Stacks.

Then he sat back with an anxious eye on the clock. Across the way he saw Jordenson, the Western coach, frowning and shifting restlessly as the strategy took effect.

Stacks was a big man, but not a good big man. Time after time McGuire, Coogan and Ricard tied the big center’s ankles into knots as they cut around him for an open shot.

Encouraged by the slow change in the score, the Nyeland defense tightened up, though Western was dangerous every time they got their hands on the ball. They were fighting desperately to preserve some fractional part of their lead.

Slowly the score changed... 30–18... 36–30... 39–37... 41–40.

Now the crowd-scream was one continuous sound, lost in the back of Jad’s mind. He was as unaware of it as the guests at a party are unaware of the ticking of a clock. He was watching the master-pattern of the game.

Western, slashing hard in desperation, got two in a row to bring it up to 45–40, but then, spearheaded by a fighting, wild-eyed Harlan McGuire, the Deuces got their two and then, after a zig-zag pattern of passes, two tries and two wild rebounds, they got the third to go out ahead 46–45. Both Jordenson and Jad Harrik replaced dangerously weary men. Stalk Coogan, his mouth drawn with strain, was playing his usual forty-minute game.

Nyeland rooters groaned as the lead was lost and it went 47–46. Jad’s thick fingernails bit hard into his palms. The seconds ticked away. Stalk dribbled off into the corner and passed out to Petrie. But Petrie, unaccountably, had turned away. The ball bounced high off his shoulder. Three players spilled in a pile-up and Stalk recovered his own pass, stumbling, turning even as he was falling to arc the ball up. It kissed the backboard and dropped clean as the signal sounded for the end of the game. The coed cheerleader fainted and the Nyeland rooters went mad.

“Now you’re a hero,” Paul Frieden said, grinning.

“By one point,” Jad said drily. “One big point. I liked the way it was made. That was cute. Bounce your pass off your own man, fall down while you’re catching it and shoot before you hit the floor. Great!”

He went into the locker room. The joking and laughing stilled as he came in.

“A great squad,” he said bitterly. “Wonderful basketball! What do you think would have happened if Link had stayed in there? Henry Martinik is the only man I ever saw who could put a lid on that Link and keep it there. Your timing stunk out loud. I thought I could depend on you, Lamb. Your passing was inferior. Zimmerman, when they tried to steal it, you handed it to them. Ricard, half the time you were running one sequence while the rest of the team was running another. Why don’t you take a stick and a knife out there and get in some whittling? Coogan, you tried seven scores, by actual count, where you missed because you were trying to make them the fancy way. Got a girl in the audience? Then you’d let them gobble it off the rim and take it away from you. Ever hear of the rebound? A simple and effective maneuver. And remember, all of you, when the pattern says that two men go in, I’d like to see two go in. Tonight I got sick of seeing three or one. We aren’t playing this game off the cuff, you know. Not one man tonight played any better than what is called outstanding high-school ball. Next week on our little trip we take in Freemont, Holdenburg and Central. Last year it was a breather trip. This year it could turn into a funeral.”

He turned on his heel and left.

But in each game something was learned, some improvisation noted, marked down for future use. Out of the Western had come three offensive thrust formations. Jad stayed up until two-thirty in the morning, and at last he was satisfied with his neat drawings. Running the squad through them would give him the timing, and the count. The drawings could then he put on a master stencil and sheets run off for the squad notebooks, with each man marking in red his own responsibility in the sequence.

Chapter Two

Hell on the Hoop

The big chartered bus unloaded by the dormitories. Jad Harrik said good night to Paul and the squad and walked alone in the snow back to his house. The snow squeaked under his steps and the stars were high and far away.

As he came up onto his porch he could see, through the front windows, the fire crackling in the living-room fireplace. Some of the tension went out of him. He set his bag down in the hallway. “Anybody home?”

Martha met him in the middle of the living room. “How did it go, darling?”

Jad sat down without removing his coat. The tiredness was deep in him. “We looked terrible. In every game. Terrible!”

“The papers said you won,” she said, smiling.

There was a thin note of anger in his voice that took away her smile. “We won, all right. But I don’t know how. Those are the three weakest teams in the conference. The biggest margin we had was five points over Holdenberg. And next Friday we get a visit from Western Ohio U. Know what the Ohios did to Holdenberg? They won by twenty-three points. Sixty-five to forty-two. Next Friday is going to be dandy! They’ve got a guard and a center nominated on the pre-season All American squads. Fran Stillwater and Si Veeley. Oh, we’re in great shape for that one.”

“I’ve laid out clean clothes for you, Jad. You’ve got time for a hot shower.”

He stared through her. “If I had a clown on the squad, I could throw him off. If I had wise guys, I could give them the bounce. Every kid tries his heart out. Every kid has ability. I’ve trained them until I’m blue in the face.”

He got up and walked woodenly into the hall and up the stairs.

Dinner was by candlelight. The steaks were good, the burgundy was exceptional. Jad ate mechanically.

Martha had her soft hair piled high. Midway through the meal she said softly, “Jad, do you know what day this is?”

He gave her a startled look. “Day?” Then he slowly realized that the meal was served in a special manner, that Martha had a special look. And he was ashamed.

He said, “I seem to remember that five years ago today a very special gal had the misfortune to get hooked up with a dull-witted schnook that isn’t smart enough to appreciate her.” He stood up, went around the table and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Honey, I’m sorry I bring the job home. It’s just that it means so much to our future.”

She smiled. “Darling, is the present so horrible?”

“Huh?” He looked over at the small cheerful fire. He grinned. “It isn’t too bad now, is it? All I need is... never mind.”

“What, darling?”

“I shouldn’t say it. A little confidence that we can lick the Ohios.”

Jad took advantage of the schedule break to work the squad intensely. He put on the uniform and went through the formations with them, keeping up a steady stream of instructions as he worked up a sweat. “Coogan, you’re off balance on the full pivot. Get down off your toes for it and plant the right foot. Keep your elbows out and the ball low or they’ll take it away from you. Look! Like this. See? Now I’m in position to pass it without signaling the direction.”

“Ricard, you’re looping those passes too high and too slow. You give the defense too much time. I want to see that ball move like a bullet, but don’t sling it with your arm. All fingers and wrists.”

“Lamb, on your hook shot you’re pushing the ball off the heel of your hand. Roll it up off your fingertips like this.”

“Okay, gang. Now run the series where Coogan is the decoy, and we make the break from the bounce pass from Zimmerman to Ricard.”

He stood with stony face and watched them go through the sequences. Last year’s team had been a shining rapier, flexible, fast as light. This squad was fast, all right. But it was a tin sword, bending as it thrust.

The trouble was that they were all so eager to do it right. He would catch them looking at him, hopefully.

“No!” he roared. “Coogan, when you take that step, slow down. Then the pass will hit you so that you can go right on up with it on a forward push. You take the step too fast and you’re beyond the basket and you’ve got to hook it up backward. That cuts your chances. Always play the percentage. Now run it again.”

On the Thursday before the game, George Lion wrote a scalding column.

We’ve had hopes that, after a slow start, Harrik would bring the Deuces up to peak. We’ve had hopes that he was aiming at the Ohio, who are beginning to look like the conference champs. But hopes are often vain.

Last week’s three games is a case in point. If Holdenberg hadn’t run out of steam during the final half, that could have been an upset. As it was, it was an upset. The Deuces should have been twenty points better.

Let’s face it. Nyeland just hasn’t got a team this year. Harrik is placing five individuals on the court. Each individual has flashes of brilliance. Each individual has desolate tangle-footed in moments. When the periods of brilliance happen to coincide, the Deuces score almost effortlessly. When the tangle-foot germ hits them, even the weakest opponents score at will. We saw the same group last year. To see them this year is a sad and unfortunate commentary on the inability of what we was a fine coach to bring out the possibilities of his team.

Last year we were saying that Harrik developed Hank Martinik. This year we’re saying that Hank carried the team — and the coach.

After he read the column, he stood by the fire, his hands clenched. Martha came touched him on the arm. “Jad, it’s only—”

“Don’t talk about it!” he snapped.

She stepped back as though he had her, her face pale. Without a word she turned and left the room. Jad balled the newspaper and threw it on the bed of coals. It smoked and then the yellow bright flames licked at it, devoured it. It turned shiny black and fragments floated up in the heat,

They were as tight as a bowstring when he talked to them before the game.

“All right,” he said quietly. “We’re underdogs tonight. Ohio is fat and happy. There’s no point in telling you I want a win. There is some point in telling you that I want you to look like a squad that’s worked together before.”

He watched them go out onto the court. He groaned inwardly. They were making too many aimless motions, wasting too much energy bouncing around. They were like a hopped-up high-school quintet, amateurish beside the controlled ease of the Ohioans.

He looked at the Ohio squad. Fran Stillwater, the six-foot-six center, was a big steel spring. Si Veeley was known for his blazing speed. Ed Chizwiak, the set-shot expert. Moe Antone, canny and deceptive. Lefty Dwyer, who could get the ball away before you knew he had touched it. They moved with that controlled insolence, that fat-cat competence that all winning combos in every sport seem to acquire.

Stalk took himself out of the first tap by going up too soon, a mistake that he hadn’t made all season. Stillwater slapped it over to Veeley. Veeley dribbled down directly at Bobby Lamb, pivoted and passed it over to Antone coming down the sideline. Antone got rid of it in a greased-lightning bounce pass behind Bobby Lamb while Bobby tried vainly to reach it. Stillwater, coming in, took the pass at his thighs as he went up into his leap, holding the ball in one hand, thrusting it gently upward and forward at the apex of his leap. It didn’t touch the rim as it whisked down through the strings.

Ben Cohen took it and passed it out to Stalk, already moving. Stalk dribbled twice and Lefty Dwyer reached out, almost delicately, and hooked the ball away. It skittered over to Chizwiak who whirled, feinted Ricard out of position, turned back and sank his set shot from forty feet.

Nyeland took it downcourt and cross-passed it, looking for the break to go in. Zimmerman whirled free and drifted over into the corner. Jad caught his breath as Ben Cohen made the pass. But somehow Chizwiak twisted and got his hand in front of the ball. Stillwater had sensed the break and he was at top speed, going down the court. Chizwiak flung the ball half the length of the court, hanging it on a hook in front of Stillwater. Stillwater dribbled, cut left and went up, dropping his shot beautifully.

Again Cohen took it and again they went down, passing hard and fast, probing for a hole in the Ohio defense. This time Zimmerman got through and missed. Stalk went up and missed the rebound, stumbling as he came down. By then Stillwater had come up and he slapped it out to Antone who flung a looping pass diagonally across-court to Chizwiak. Chizwiak took it down, making a full pivot away from Frenchy Ricard, taking it in as though to go up with it, then braking and feeding out to the side to Stillwater. Stillwater dropped it without effort.

The score stood at 8–0, with the Ohios looking good enough to make it 80-0. Nyeland rooters sat in blank, numb apathy.

At the end of ten minutes it was 15-4, and nervous Frenchy Ricard was playing with fury, tears on his cheeks. Ohio took advantage of his anger to lure him out of position and go into the slot he left open.

Jad heard the comments from the packed bleachers behind him. The game was being played in a silence so intense that you could hear the slap of rubber on the floor.

“Outclassed,” a man said, with anger in his voice. “...different when Henry was in there,” a woman said. “Come on, you tanglefoot wonders!” a drunk roared.

And, at the end of the half, it stood 33–13. The very size of the deficit seemed to render the Deuces more helpless. Jad had to sit and watch the sorry spectacle of Coogan passing to a man who wasn’t there, of Zimmerman over-running the basket when he did work his way loose, of Ricard, trying for an intercept, tapping the ball directly into the basket for an Ohio score.

He sat huddled on the bench with Paul Frieden pale and silent beside him.

The game ended, 61–30.

Jad said, “Paul, take care of things. I’m going home.”

Martha met him in the hallway. She said firmly, “Let’s not talk about it.”

“You heard it over the radio?”

“Yes.”

He gave her a tired smile. “I wish there was some way I could stop thinking about it.”

“It isn’t the end of the world, Jad.”

“The end of my world.”

She frowned at him. “You never have been really disappointed in anything before, have you? You’ve had such a plan for everything. Nothing has ever defeated you.”

“This has.”

She nodded. “I know. And maybe it’s a good thing.”

“Oh, don’t give me any pollyanna philosophy! Please!”

Her eyes flashed. “And don’t take your disappointments out on me!”

“I’m sorry, baby. I really am.”

“Forgiven, darling.”

He sighed. “Well, now it’s over. We’re out of the running. Maybe I can relax.”

“I hope you can.”

At practice he was bleak and silent. The squad worked out hard, but without spirit. He was standing on the sideline when he saw Ryan Zimmerman look beyond him and smile broadly, then yell, “Look who’s here!”

Jad turned quickly and saw Henry Martinik walk toward him. He saw at once that the left sleeve of Henry’s overcoat swung empty.

Jad shook his hand. “Henry! What are you doing here? What happened to you?”

Henry was tall, with a lean brown face, a certain shyness about him. George Lion had consistently called him Hank in the column, but among people who knew Henry, it had never caught on. The nickname did not fit him. He had a certain shy rustic honesty about him that made him one of the Henrys of this world.

“Coach, I fell right under the basket and two hundred pounds of meat came down on my fingers and busted the middle one. I’ve got it fastened to this here board for a while.”

“Will you get back in this season?”

“They think so. With the money they’re paying me, they’re right anxious to see that I do. How’s Mrs. Harrik?”

“She’s fine, Henry. Where are you staying?”

“I dropped my bag off at the Inn.”

The squad had grouped around them. Henry, grinning from ear to ear, shook hands with his friends and took the joking about how often he had his name in the papers.

When Jad had a chance, he said, “Henry, you’re staying with us. Martha wouldn’t forgive me if I let you stay down at the Inn. No arguments.”

Henry grinned. “You’re the boss, coach.”

Coogan said, “We got some new stuff, Henry.” He spoke eagerly, and then he glanced uncertainly at Jad. “It hasn’t been working so good.”

“Let’s see some of it,” Henry said, “if it won’t upset anything, coach.”

They split into two teams and Paul tossed up the ball. Jad watched in amazement. They slid through the sequences like butter sliding down a hot stove, making the slots, taking advantage of them, holing out. They were five agile hands of one body — a team, anticipating each other’s thoughts, faking, pivoting, passing. “I’ll be damned,” Jad said softly.

They broke it off. Henry said, “Say, now! You got some sharp stuff there!”

“How about some coffee?” Jad asked.

They went and sat in a booth in the coffee shop in the basement of the Fine Arts building.

Henry said, “It isn’t going so good, is it?”

“It isn’t going good at all. Something’s missing. You, maybe.”

“Hell, coach. I wasn’t the team. You know that. There’s five guys on an outfit, and you still got four of ’em.”

“I don’t know what it is.”

“They looked right to me out there.”

“And for those three or four minutes, Henry, they looked the best they’ve looked all season. Well, the season is shot now. I had to play it smart and try for two conference championships in a row so that I could get a better bid to go someplace else. I outsmarted myself. There won’t be any bids after this season.”

Henry frowned. “You giving up? Ohio will have some bad nights. They’ll drop a few. I’ve been checking the records. I don’t see why you couldn’t work it up to a playoff.”

“I could, if I had a squad, Henry. You ought to see them in a game. They try, but it just isn’t there. We’ll drop a lot more games than Ohio will. The season record might even be fair, but Nyeland won’t be in any playoffs.”

Henry grinned. “It could be professional pessimism, huh?”

Jad sadly shook his head. “Not this time. You’ll get a chance to see what I mean Monday night. We’re host to Winebeck Teachers. I’d like to have you on the bench with me. But we’ll skip my problems. How do you like the pro game?”

Henry whistled softly. “I guess I was getting pretty cocky. Those boys can cut you down to size fast. Makes you think, when you try all night to pass around a little fat old guy and he knocks it down every time.”

“Joe Risold?”

“That’s the one.”

“He gave me some bad nights too. I wish I was back playing.”

Henry grinned. “And I wish I was coaching.”

“Maybe you can tell me what’s wrong with the squad, Henry.”

“I can try, coach, but—”

“The name is Jad, Henry.”

“Okay, Jad. Sounds funny to call you that.”

“Sit tight. I’ll phone Martha and tell her you’re coming.”

The Winebecks were fast and strong and hard, but they lacked sharpshooters. Too many of their set shots were wild. They pranced and worked with an endless and tireless energy, and if they had had one man consistent from twenty feet, the game might have ended differently. As it was, it was a close thing.

Jad glanced from time to time at Henry’s frowning face. The Deuces pulled all the old errors from their bag of tricks, and added some new ones. At one point Ryan Zimmerman threw an inadvertent but beautiful body block on Frenchy Ricard and knocked him flat. Later, Coogan and Cohen, cutting in from opposite corners, collided under the basket with force that knocked them both sprawling. The passing was ragged, inaccurate.

But Bobby Lamb and Frenchy Ricard, oddly enough, were having one of those nights when the hoop looks as big around as a bushel basket.

It was 48–42, with a minute and a half left, when Ryan Zimmerman was taken out on personal fouls. The remaining four drew into the tight zone defence established for that contingency, but Winebeck brought it up to 48–45 by game’s end.

Henry was in the squad room listening while Jad gave them a run-through of the game, carefully listing the errors and the reasons, pointing out the defects in count and timing.

Martha sat with her sewing after they got back to the house, while Henry sprawled on the deep couch, and Jad paced back and forth, gesturing, explaining.

“You saw them tonight,” Jad said. “They’re good boys. They’ve got an instinct for the game. They’re not overtrained or undertrained. I’ve given them a bag of tricks that ought to be enough to smother any opponent in the conference. They all want to do well. This is their sport. Ben Cohen is the only one who plays football too. They just don’t dick, and it isn’t my fault.”

“Isn’t it?” Henry asked mildly.

Chapter Three

Two-Point Poison

There silence in the room. “Just what do you mean by that, Martinik?”

“Don’t get sore, coach.”

Martha gave a forced laugh. “He’s pretty sensitive these days, Henry.”

“Henry,” Jad said, “for a minute there you sounded like George Lion.”

“Jad, you want to learn what the trouble is, don’t you?” Henry asked.

“I certainly do.”

“And you’re willing to listen to anybody who might have a reason?”

“Of course, Henry.”

“Then don’t get sore at me, coach. Because if you get sore at me you won’t listen to me, and if you don’t listen, you might never find out why you’ve got wonderful material and no team.”

Jad sat down across the room. “I’m listening.”

“When I first came here to Nyeland, coach, you scared me. Honest, you really gave me the shakes.”

Jad frowned, puzzled. “I don’t get it.”

“Now I got to get personal. You’ve got a tough look, coach. You don’t smile. You’ve got a hard eye on you. To top it off you’ve got a complete knowledge of the game and you can do anything you tell the kids to do, plus a national reputation. Right?”

“I don’t see what that’s got to do—”

“Let me tell you in my own way, please, Jad.”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you remember my sophomore season?”

“Of course. That was the first year I was here. I thought you’d never live up to what I’d hoped. You played erratic ball, all right,”

“Do you know why? I’ll tell you. Because you scared me and at the same time I had a heck of a lot of respect for you. I wanted so bad to do what you told me to do. I’d pull off something that looked all right, and then I’d look at you. I’d get the old stony eye. So I’d figure it wasn’t good enough for you. So I’d try harder. Next thing I’d know, I’d be falling over my own feet trying to be superman. It got the other guys the same way. We started that year in a pretty sad fashion, and we didn’t end up so well, either.”

“Nobody has any reason to be afraid of me, Henry.”

“Do they know that? In the junior year I got to know you. And it was just by accident, too. That was when my father was here. After he saw you he came all smiles over to my room and told me that you’d told him that I could maybe be the best in the country that season. Then I knew what you were thinking. You still gave me the stony eye all the time, but I knew that underneath you liked the way I was working. It made a difference.”

“When they do a good job, I tell them.”

“Sure you do, coach. You tell them all together and you say it like your mouth hurt. You see, I understand you now. I’ve talked to the pros you played with. You’re a perfectionist. Everything has to be just so. And even if the squad turned in a hundred to nothing game, you’d worry about how Zimmy was slow on a pivot in the second half. You know basketball as well as any guy in the country, but you don’t know to handle the team.”

Jad jumped up. “Don’t know how to handle the team! How do you account for last year?”

Henry gave him a mild, shy smile. “Well, it was like this. When what dad told me made me feel good, I figured it would work with the other guys. I hung around you enough to make it look good, and then I would go to the other guys one at a time and tell them things you said. Some of them you did say. The rest I had to make up. Why, I’d tell Ben Cohen that you said he was one of the toughest defensive men in the conference. Then I’d get Zimmy aside and tell him that you said he was the finest rebound artist you’d ever seen. The same with all the other guys. I made a joke out of it, sort of. You’d peel the squad after every game and then later I’d fix it up by quoting you on the good plays they made, whether you’d said it or not.”

Jad shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked at a log on the fire. “But I don’t... I mean, I recognize the good plays when I see them and—”

“And that’s all you do. The guys are all right. They’re just trying too hard and they don’t hear any compliments any more. The harder they try, the worse they get. It isn’t hard to figure out, once you know what I was doing the past two years. It’s like a good racehorse. The owner feed it perfectly, give it the right exercise, bring it up to a peak — but unless there’s somebody to talk to it and show some affection, that horse is never going to put out the best it has.”

Martha said, “I should have known.”

Jad spun on her. “How would have known?”

Her smile was wry. “Darling, you are not what I would call affectionate. I have to imagine, most of the time, that you’re still in love with me. I’m not complaining. It’s just the way you are.”

“What are you going to do about it, coach?” Henry asked.

“But... I... I can’t go to them and spread a lot of butter around. I can’t hear myself doing anything like that.”

“Why not?”

“Well... I—”

“You’ve got Penn College coming up Wednesday. Ohio nosed them out by a point. Look what Ohio did to you. Penn will do it too unless those guys hear what they’ve been wanting to hear.”

“A player should have confidence in his own ability,” Jad said. “Nothing I do or say should be able to destroy that confidence.”

“One out of a hundred is good, knows it, and doesn’t give a damn how the coach acts. The rest of us have to have a little confidence fed to us with a spoon once in a while. If you hadn’t broken down and told my father what you actually thought of me, Jad, I’d never be playing pro ball right now, and you would never have racked up that conference championship, believe me.”

He wrote it out, corrected it, and then memorized it so well that he could say it as though it were a casual speech. He flushed as he said it to his mirror. He had never had any stomach for flattery, given or received.

The squad room had about it a pre-game flavor of defeat. Coogan was listlessly tightening his shoelaces. Crowd noises filtered into the room, muffled and distant.

Jad Harrik took a deep breath. “Uh — fellows,” he said. They all stared at him in surprise at the forced joviality. Jad flushed. “I... ah... I’ve decided that there’s no point in the usual briefing. This is as good a time as any to tell you how much I’ve enjoyed working with you so far this season. Penn has some able boys. They haven’t any top performers to match you, man for man, Coogan, you’re one of the best. Ben, I know you’ll do your usual outstanding defensive job. And Frenchy, it’s a pleasure to watch you work out there. I don’t know whether I get more kick out of watching you or Zimmerman. Bobby, you’ve got a wonderful knack for smelling out the offensive thrust and getting to the right place at the right time. And the rest of you, Miller, Petrie, Jones, McGuire, Ames — I just want to say that there’s darn little to choose between you and the starting lineup. A lot of you will be my starting lineup next season, and I’ll be proud to put you on the floor. Now let’s make a game of it tonight.”

He turned in the heavy silence and walked out. At the end of the corridor he met Henry. Henry said, “How did it go over?”

“Like a concrete balloon. They just sat there, all of them, with their mouths open. They looked at me as if I were carrying my head under my arm. No, Henry, you guessed wrong. I could tell by the surprise that it wasn’t something they’d been expecting, or needing. Even Paul gaped at me as if I’d gone crazy. This is another slaughter.”

The little red-headed cheer leader went through her gyrations mechanically, without interest. George Lion had predicted a Penn win by eighteen points. Penn’s conference rating was just below Ohio’s, With slippery, agile, six-foot-ten Hoagy Parr at center, with an average so far of 20.6 points per game, and with four fast converted centers from high-school star teams at the other four positions, Penn had hopes of upsetting Ohio in the playoffs. Sam Denver and Cleet Mannis were the forwards with Louis Antonelli and Jack Angelus at guard.

Henry sat beside Jad and said, “They look looser out there tonight.”

“Glad you think so,” Jad said quietly. “Okay, here we go.”

Stalk Coogan and Hoagy Parr went high after the tap, neither getting it away cleanly. Ricard and Jack Angelus jumped for it and Frenchy snatched it away, pivoting and slamming it across to Ryan Zimmerman. Ryan dribbled it down the sideline, weaved his body toward the inside, and as the man on him took a wrong step, Ryan scooted down the sideline on the outside. He crouched, within paydirt distance, faked the set shot and passed it to mid-court to Coogan coming down the middle. Coogan, feeling himself smothered, made a half pivot and hung the ball for Bobby Lamb’s easy push-up.

The ball circled the rim. Louis Antonelli, with a sizzling skyscraper leap, brushed it away with his fingertips. Coogan was close enough for the rebound, but off balance. Hoagy Parr swiped it and slung it downcourt to Sam Denver. Cohen had dropped back. With a burst of speed be passed Denver and turned, arms outspread. Denver, barreling along, had to stop so abruptly to keep from crashing Cohen that the ball slithered out of his hands.

Ben Cohen batted it over to Ryan Zimmerman who was floating up the sideline. Ryan faked a cross-court pass to Coogan and then flipped it ahead to Frenchy. Frenchy went in fast, pivoted and fed it out to Cohen. As Cohen went up with it, Cleet Mannis batted it away, right into Bobby Lamb’s hands. Bobby missed his shot and Hoagy Parr pounded down the floor with the ball. Two hook shots were batted away and then Jack Angelus sank a set shot from five feet outside the foul line.

Jad slowly grew conscious of the crescendo of noise behind him. Nyeland was seeing a rejuvenated team, a hard fighting team, reckless of energy, expending it in bursts of dazzling speed, flipping the ball around.

“See what I mean?” Henry yelled.

Ben Cohen rifled it out to Frenchy on the sideline. Cleet Mannis was all over Frenchy, nailing him there. Frenchy faked a high overhand toss, then scooted the ball low under Mannis’ left arm as he lifted it instinctively. Coogan took it at a full hard run, dribbling down to the foul circle, making a full spin there, faking twice during the spin, then slanting it over to Bobby Lamb who was coming in fast from the corner. Bobby dropped it neatly for the 2–2 count.

Penn College came back with endless bounce, weaving a pattern of bewilderment inside the edge of the scoring zone, then knifing in for the deuce. Frenchy fouled Cleet Mannis to make it 5–2. Then, on a dive at a bounce pass, Jack Angelus stole the ball, flipped it deep, took the feedout and sank it. It was 7–2.

“It was good while it lasted,” Jad said. The Nyeland rooters had sunk into apathetic silence, but they came awake again with a great roar as Coogan stole the ball from Hoagy Parr, and Ricard and Zimmerman went deep criss-crossing halfway in from the foul circle to tie up the defense enough to shake Ricard free. Hoagy slammed the ball at Frenchy’s head and Frenchy put it on a high hook for Ben Cohen coming out of the far corner.

Back under the Nyeland basket, Stalk smothered a rebound, flipped it ahead to Zimmerman who, forced into a corner, whirled free and sank it from there.

Then big Sam Denver delayed too long and was smothered at the center-court sideline and Coogan won the tap, feeding it into Ryan Zimmerman’s hands. Zimmerman, free for the moment, dribbled a slow diagonal while Cohen and Ricard raced down. But Frenchy misjudged his distance and Antonelli sunk the foul shot. It was 8–6.

Moments later Cohen slung a high wild one from midcourt. Three men went high at the basket, but it was Stalk who put the necessary correction on the ball to lift it in.

Penn raced back down the court with it, compressing the defense, flipping it back and forth, seeking an opening. Sam Denver found a vacuum to the left of the hoop, but Bobby Lamb, on a frantic dive, got his hand on the ball. It rolled clear and Ryan Zimmerman scooped it up, underhanded it to Coogan, raced ahead, took the flip over his shoulder, relayed it on to Ricard and then, taking the handoff in midair, continued on up, rolling it off his fingertips to build the tally to 10-8. Penn called time.

Jad realized he was half-standing. He sank slowly back onto the bench. Henry was pounding his shoulder, yelling, “Like that? You like that?”

The Deuces caught fire. They played all-out ball, yet not forgetting the intricate patterns of deception, not forgetting to think on the run, not forgetting how to take advantage of a Penn step in the wrong direction, a moment of hesitation.

“They can’t last,” Jad muttered. “They can’t last at this rate.”

On and on the score climbed. The Deuces played with flushed abandon; the Penns worked grimly, switching defensive styles, changing assignments. Ben Cohen got hot and they began to smother him. So Ben made a series of beautiful feed shots, just where and when they weren’t expected. After a time the Penns began to keep a tight rein on the potential receivers, and so Ben opened up again with deadly eye.

Nyeland kept tipping them off balance. In the last half, with four minutes to go, it was 58–46, and every Deuce had played a thirty-six-minute game. But Jad could see the legs slowly turning to putty, and he knew well the great hard pain from waist to heart, the cotton in the mouth, the anguished sucking of wind that was never quite enough.

It wouldn’t have happened if tall, yellow-topped Coogan’s reflexes hadn’t been impaired by weariness. He was cutting fast down the middle when Sam Denver tripped and dived at him. Coogan tried to writhe his body out of the way, but Denver hit him solidly in the groin with his shoulder. Coogan hit hard and lay still. Time was called and the trainer went out. They got Coogan on his feet and he came slowly of the floor, leaning heavily on the trainer.

“Better take him on back,” Jad said.

“Not a chance, coach,” Stalk said through pain-whitened lips. “I gotta see the rest of this.”

Three minutes and forty seconds remaining. Jad filled the slot with King Miller, then turned to Henry and said, “The foul shot makes it fifty-nine to forty-six. Now we see if they make thirteen points in the time that’s left.”

King Miller started out with a lot of bounce. He always reminded Jad of an airdale puppy, full of life but always confused.

Stalk’s loss ripped the heart out of both the offense and defense. Nyeland screamed as they saw their team’s lead being whittled down. Twice Miller was faked out of position and the lead dropped.

Then Ryan Zimmerman, on a brilliant fake, took it all the way. But with two minutes remaining, the Penns made three goals in a minute and a half. They whirled out again, stole the ball, carried it down and Jack Angelus hooked it in. Fifteen seconds to go, and the score 61–58. The Deuces were leg-weary. Mannis, on a foul by Cohen, was awarded two shots and made them both perfect. Five seconds. Hoagy Parr tapped it over to Sam Denver, and Denver was going down with it. Every man was in motion toward the Nyeland basket. Three seconds — two seconds — Denver stopped, planted himself, shot. The ball arced up, floating endlessly in the glare of the lights, reaching the highest point of the curve. Jad’s eye automatically extended the line of flight and knew that it was in. But up, up, up — a leap to an incredible height, and a leap that was timed to perfect and uncanny accuracy — up went gaunt lean King Miller and the reaching fingers brushed the ball. It hit the rim, deflected by the touch, bounced, came straight down and hit the rim again, and fell outside the strings. The game ended, 61–60, as King Miller whipped the ball upcourt at nobody in particular, his grin so wide that it looked as though he could tie it at the back of his neck.

“I’m old before my time!” Jad yelled into Henry’s ear — and then the frenzied fans had hoisted him roughly onto their shoulders and were marching him around the court.

By the time he could fight his way into the dressing room, some of the squad were already dressed.

He stared at them for a moment, at tired and contented faces. There were a lot of things they had to be told. Ricard’s ragged pivoting. Ryan Zimmerman’s bad underhand flips.

“This game,” he said, “showed up a few things that need correction.” His voice was hard and grating. He looked around again. For a moment he thought he heard Henry’s voice, even though Henry had already gone back to the house. He cleared his throat.

“What I mean to say is, we can fix up any little things we did wrong at some other time. It was the sort of contest I knew you could make. I’m proud of you. Take care of things, Paul.”

They were laughing and the room was a babble of talk before he got the door shut behind him. He frowned. It did seem better than walking out in the usual deathly hush that followed his after-game comments.

At the breakfast booth, Jad and Henry played the game over, time and time again. Together they marveled at King Miller’s frantic, perfect save in the last second of the game. Martha listened to them, smiling to herself.

“I don’t know how to thank you, Henry,” Jad said, his voice humble. “Maybe now I can go ahead and be a coach. I can even learn how to sound sincere when I tell them they’re good.” His voice strengthened, “But I’m going to stamp down hard when I see sloppy play.”

Henry grinned. “Sure you are, and it will do them good. But they’ve got to see both sides of the coin. Speaking of coins, I’ll bet you that with the outfit you’ve got right now, you can make up lost ground and squeak into the playoffs. If you do, those kids will be at a pitch that’ll get you the conference championship again.”

Jad leaned back in the booth. He said softly, “Yeah! You know it might work out that way. It just might.”

He glanced at Martha. She was taking a sip of coffee.

“You’ve got the right angle,” Henry said. “I’m going to hack at the pro game for a few years, as long as I can stay on top, and then I want to get into coaching too.”

In an even voice Martha said, “This is a nice life, though next year I imagine, if the team is now all you say it is, we’ll be at a much larger school.”

“That’s right,” Jad said jovially. “Big-time. A real organization. A lot of talent to draw on.”

Henry raised his eyebrows. He stirred his coffee. “I don’t know, Jad. I think you get the best deal in the small places. You don’t make so much, but it doesn’t cost you as much.”

“Jad wants a big school,” Martha said.

There was something odd about her tone. Jad looked at her curiously. She didn’t meet his glance. He shrugged.

“Oh, those kids had it tonight. Just like old times, Henry. Wasn’t it? They pulled stuff I never knew I’d taught ’em. And that Miller!” He frowned. “You know, next year I might be able to work some judgment into that boy. My first string will have to be Miller, Petrie, Cohen, McGuire and Ames. I think I can wake Ames up. We might—”

“Won’t that be someone else’s problem, dear?” Martha asked sweetly.

Jad started with surprise and then laughed. “I almost forgot I wasn’t going to be stuck here forever.” His laughter died on a sour note. “That’s funny. Yesterday I was dying to get out of this place. Now, when it looks like I’ll be able to make it, I feel — a little upset.”

Martha’s fingers bit into his wrist. “Look around, Jad darling,” she said, her voice low and tense. “Look at what we have here! Where else in the world could the two of us be as happy?”

There was confusion in his tone. “But it’s a... a little place.”

“If bigness means the same as goodness, Jad,” Henry said, grinning, “then your pint-sized wife is a pretty miserable sort of woman.”

Jad frowned. “You know... maybe I might stay right here.”

He looked at Martha. Her eyes were swimming with unshed tears.

Henry said hurriedly, pushing his way out of the booth, “Well, I guess I’ll turn in, folks.”

As Henry went into the guest room he sighed heavily. There had been hopes of one day holding down the coaching slot at Nyeland.

It looked as though the job was filled. For keeps.

Content

John D. MacDonald
The Plunder Five

Chapter One Scrap-Iron Team

Chapter Two Hell on the Hoop

Chapter Three Two-Point Poison