The Long Fall Read Online Free PDF Page A

aren’t you?”
    Richard leans back in his chair. “Enjoyable is not exactly how I’d characterize a visit with you, Jimmy. Predictable, maybe. Tiresome, certainly.” Richard stretches, latching his fingers behind his neck.
    The thing is, if Penny Hardaway had not scored twenty-nine points against the Lakers, Jimmy would not be having this conversation. He’d be a man of property, dotted-line time, free and clear. He would have had the back taxes and probate costs covered, and he would not have to be enduring his brother’s sanctimonious bullshit.
    When he got out of Perryville, Jimmy had borrowed six grand from Ray Harp, Jimmy going in at six-and-a-half for five, willing to live with the twenty-five percent interest and Ray’s clock because Jimmy knew once he got the taxes paid off and the land formally in his name he could walk into a bank of choice and, given its development potential, get a loan against the property with no problem and then simply go on and pay back Ray. It was a workable plan, a necessary, if roundabout, way for an ex-con with an apocalyptic credit history to secure a loan along conventional lines.
    After he got the money from Ray, Jimmy had every intention of going straight to the tax office, but then he ran into a speed bump of a waitress named Marci, who introduced him to a friend of her brother’s, a guy named Carl Bailey, who she said worked as a trainer for the Phoenix Suns, it eventually turning out Carl was not exactly a trainer but more like an assistant to an assistant of the Suns’ trainer, but the way Jimmy saw it, the guy was still hanging out at America West with the team and should have known the skinny on the players no matter what his official title was.
    Over drinks, Carl confided that Penny Hardaway had recently pulled the hamstring in his right thigh during practice, but that the general manager and the coaching staff had elected to keep quiet about the injury. Hardaway had been burning up the nets, and with the Western Conference playoffs starting, they weren’t about to give L.A. any psychological edge by admitting that Hardaway was hurt. He was still slated to start against the Lakers. Carl said Penny would be lucky to finish the first quarter before being benched.
    Carl didn’t need to explain to Jimmy how this type of inside info could benefit an individual so inclined to bet against the point spread set for the next game, as well as laying down a sizable side bet on Hardaway’s projected total for the night itself. Jimmy figured that one out all by himself.
    Jimmy had watched the game with the regulars at the Chute, a bunch of die-hard Suns fans, and had basked in their groans and curses as Phoenix consistently choked on both offense and defense during the first half. Hardaway went to the bench in the middle of the second quarter, having gone one for twelve from the field. By halftime the Lakers were up sixteen points.
    Everything fell apart for Jimmy in the second half when the Suns decided to play basketball. The TV commentators kept using words like “decisive,” “inspired,” and “heroic.” The regulars at the Chute yelled themselves hoarse while Jimmy sat clutching his draft in disbelief, Hardaway setting off a twenty-two-point run in the third quarter, Hardaway playing in some zone beyond his injury, the Suns going on to win by two. For Jimmy, the win had been less important than the fact that the original point spread had been reestablished.
    Jimmy’s financial problems kept compounding. After having lost what he’d borrowed from Ray Harp on the game, he missed the first scheduled repayment deadline. The tax problem on his inheritance still loomed. Until he could scare up another idea for some quick cash, Jimmy had been desperate enough to take a regular job, but even that had backfired when the Jones brothers cut him loose from the Old Wild West Park, and Jimmy found himself running out of what he’d had in oceanic abundance at Perryville