Gauntlet - Michael Jan Friedman [23]
“Ice-surfing,” Caber told him, and a look of sublime contentment came over his features. “It’s a passion with me. Ever try it?”
“Once,” Nikolas replied.
To get a girl, he added silently. It was always to get a girl. But in the process, he had discovered that ice-surfing wasn’t for him.
“Didn’t love it?” Caber asked, taking note of his roommate’s lack of enthusiasm.
“Not really,” Nikolas said. “I mean, it was fun and all, and it never got as cold as they said it would, but it didn’t make my toes curl. I like a sport where you’re going head to head with someone, pitting your skills against someone else’s.”
“Winners and losers,” Caber said, boiling it all down.
It sounded to Nikolas as if his roommate disapproved of the concept. But then, he reflected, an admiral’s son might have a more “enlightened” view of such matters.
“So what do you play?” Caber asked.
“A lot of things,” Nikolas said, steadfastly unashamed of his preference for competition. “Soccer, basketball, handball—”
“Handball?” Caber echoed, interrupting him.
Nikolas nodded, ready for what he figured would be a polite but condescending remark. “That’s right.”
His roommate’s eyes narrowed. “Single wall?”
“It’s the only kind,” Nikolas said, eyeing Caber suspiciously. “Don’t tell me you play?” He did his best to keep his incredulity out of his voice, but it came out anyway.
“Sure do,” Caber told him. “Hell, I’ve been playing since I was nine or ten.”
“But—” Nikolas was at a loss.
“What?” Caber prodded.
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve always thought of single-wall handball as a street game.”
Caber chuckled, his blue eyes gleaming. “And what makes you think I didn’t grow up on the streets?”
Nikolas framed his answer carefully. After all, he didn’t want to offend the guy. “Your father’s an admiral. I figured an admiral’s kid would spend a lot of time on starbases.”
“He’s an admiral now,” Caber noted. “But when he was moving up through the ranks, I lived with my mother. In a place called Brooklyn.”
Nikolas laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“Not at all. We had a place in Brooklyn Heights. The nearest courts were a few blocks away.”
“I had a cousin in Brooklyn,” Nikolas said. “Tommy Tsouratakis. He lived in Canarsie.”
Caber leaned forward, his salmon seemingly forgotten for the moment. “I know Canarsie.”
“I went to visit Tommy once,” Nikolas recalled. It had been . . . what? Six years ago? Seven? “He wasn’t into handball himself, but he took me to the courts near his house.”
“Then,” said Caber, “you had to see a guy named Red O’Reilly.”
“Yes!” Nikolas was tickled by the coincidence. “You know Red O’Reilly? He was king of the hill, the guy to beat.”
“Did you play him?” Caber asked.
“Once. He wiped the court with me. I scored two points, maybe three if I was lucky. I was just glad he didn’t shut me out.”
Caber’s eyes lost their focus. “O’Reilly wiped the court with me too, the first half-dozen times I played him. But I kept trying, kept challenging him. After a while, I got to understand his game better. His strengths. His weaknesses, few as they were.” His mouth pulled up at the corners. “And once, just once, I squeaked by him.”
Nikolas couldn’t believe it. “You beat Red O’Reilly?”
“Fifteen-thirteen,” Caber recollected. “On a completely accidental lefthanded killer. Rolled off the wall so perfectly he couldn’t have returned it in a million years.”
Nikolas shared in the other man’s vision for a moment, savoring it as if it were he who had made the shot. Then he said with absolute earnestness, “I’m impressed.”
Caber made a dismissive sound deep in his throat. “Don’t be. I never came close to beating him again.”
But he didn’t have to, Nikolas thought. He had already accomplished the impossible—scaled Everest, won the Academy Marathon. He had conquered Red O’Reilly.
“Small world,” Nikolas remarked.
“Yeah,” Caber said. “Very small.”
As he said it, Lieutenant Commander Wu approached them on her