Tennis needed new blood, and Duane Richwood was the most exhilarating transfusion to come along in years. Courier and Sampras were about as exciting as dry dog food. The Swedish players were always a snooze-a-thon. Agassi’s act was growing wearisome. McEnroe and Connors were history.
So enter Duane Richwood. Colorful, funny, slightly controversial, but not yet hated. He was black and he was from the streets, but he was perceived as “safe” street, “safe” black, the kind of guy even racists could get behind to show they are not really racists.
“Just check this baby out, Myron. This spot, I’m telling you, it’s … it’s just …” Tunwell looked up, as though searching for the word.
“Fantastic?” Myron tried.
Ned snapped his fingers and pointed. “Just wait till you see. I get hard watching it. Shit, I get hard just thinking about it. Swear to Christ, it’s that good.”
He pressed the PLAY button.
Two days ago Valerie Simpson had sat in this very room, coming in on the heels of his meeting with Duane Richwood. The contrast was striking. Both were in their twenties, but while one career was just blossoming, the other had already dried up and blown away. Twenty-four years old and Valerie had long been labeled a “has-been” or “never-was.” Her behavior had been cold and arrogant (ergo Esperanza’s Ice Queen comment), or perhaps she’d just been distant and distracted. Hard to know for sure. And yes, Valerie had been young, but she had not exactly been—to quote a cliché—full of life. Eerie to say it now, but her eyes seemed to have more life in death—more animated while frozen and staring—than when she’d sat across from him in this very room.
Why, Myron wondered, would someone want to kill Valerie Simpson? Why had she tried so desperately to reach him? Why had she gone to the tennis center? To check out the competition? Or to find Myron?
“Watch this, Myron,” Tunwell repeated yet again. “It’s so fantastic, I came. Really, swear to God. Right in my pants.”
“Sorry I missed that,” Myron said.
Ned whooped with pleasure.
The commercial finally began. Duane appeared, wearing his sunglasses, dashing back and forth on a tennis court. Lots of quick cuts, especially to his sneakers. Lots of bright colors. Pounding beat, mixed in with the sound of tennis balls being blasted across the net. Very MTV-like. Could have been a rock video. Then Duane’s voice came on:
“Come to my court …”
A few more hard ground strokes, a few more quick cuts. Then everything suddenly stopped. Duane vanished. The color faded to black and white. Silence. Scene change. A stern-looking judge glared down from his bench. Duane’s voice returned:
“… and stay away from his court.”
The rock music started up again. The color returned. The screen cut back to Duane hitting the ball, smiling through his sweat, his sunglasses reflecting the light. A Nike symbol appeared with the words COME TO DUANE’S COURT below them.
Fade to black.
Ned Tunwell groaned—actually groaned—in satisfaction.
“You want a cigarette?” Myron asked.
Tunwell’s smile doubled in wattage. “What did I tell you, Myron? Huh? Fantastic or what?”
Myron nodded. It was good. Very good. Hip, well-made, responsible message but not too preachy. “I like it,” he said.
“I told you. Didn’t I tell you? I’m hard again. Swear to God, that’s how much I like it. I might just come again. Right here, right now. As we speak.”
“Good to know.”
Tunwell broke into a seizurelike fit of laughter. He slapped Myron’s shoulder.
“Ned?”
Tunwell’s laughter faded away like the end of a song. He wiped his eyes. “You kill me, Myron. I can’t stop laughing. You really kill me.”
“Yeah, I’m a scream. Did you hear about Valerie Simpson’s murder?”
“Sure. It was on the radio. I used to work with her, you know.” He was still smiling, his eyes wide and bright.
“She was with Nike?” Myron asked.
“Yep. And let me tell you, she cost us a bundle. I mean, Valerie seemed like a sure thing. She was only sixteen years old when we signed her and she’d already reached the finals of the French Open. Plus she was good-looking, all-American, the works. And she was already developed, if you know what I mean. She wasn’t a cute little kid who might turn into a beast when she got a little older. Like Capriatti. Valerie was a babe.”
“So what happened?”
Ned Tunwell shrugged. “She had a breakdown. Shit, it was in all the papers.”
“What caused it?”
“Hell if I know. Lot of rumors.”
“Like?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. “I forget.”
“You forget?”
“Look, Myron, most people thought it was just too much, you know? All that pressure. Valerie couldn’t hack it. Most of these kids can’t. They get it all, you know, reach such big heights and then poof, it’s gone. You can’t imagine what it’s like to lose everything like … uh …” Ned stammered to a stop. Then he lowered his head. “Ah, shit.”
Myron remained silent.
“I can’t believe I said that, Myron. To you of all people.”
“Forget it.”
“No. I mean, look, I can pretend I didn’t just put my foot in my mouth like that, but …”
Myron waved him off. “A knee injury isn’t a mental breakdown, Ned.”
“Yeah, I know but still …” He stopped again. “When the Celts drafted you, were you a Nike guy?”
“No. Converse.”
“They dump you? I mean, right away?”
“I have no complaints.”
Esperanza opened the door without knocking. Nothing new there. She never knocked. Ned Tunwell’s smile quickly returned. Hard to keep the man down. He stared at Esperanza. Appreciatively. Most men did.
“Can I see you for second, Myron?”
Ned waved. “Hi, Esperanza.”
She turned and looked right through him. One of her many talents.
Myron excused himself and followed her out. Esperanza’s desk was bare except for two photographs. One was of her dog, an adorable shaggy pooch named Chloe, winning a dog show. Esperanza was into dog shows—a sport not exactly dominated by inner-city Latinos, though she seemed to do pretty well. The desk’s other picture showed Esperanza wrestling another woman. Professionally wrestling, that is. The lovely and lithe Esperanza had once wrestled professionally under the name Little Pocahontas, the Indian Princess. For three years Little Pocahontas had been a crowd favorite of the Fabulous Ladies of Wrestling organization, popularly known as FLOW (someone had once suggested calling it the Beautiful Ladies of Wrestling, but the acronym was a problem for the networks). Esperanza’s Little Pocahontas was a scantily clad (basically a suede bikini) sexpot whom fans cheered and leered at as she bravely took on enormous evil, cheating nemeses every week. A morality play, some called it. A classic reenactment of Good vs. Evil. But to Myron the weekly action was more like those women-in-prison films. Esperanza played the beautiful, naive prisoner stuck in cell block C. Her opponent was Olga, the sadistic prison matron.