Free The Diehard by Jon A. Jackson Page A

smears.
    It was a rectangular room with a high ceiling. The only door was short, a door for midgets. It was held shut by a magnet and had a shallow depression for a handhold, allowing it to be pulled open from the inside. There was a slit in the door, through which those on the outside could peer to see if the room was occupied.
    In addition, there was a gallery that looked onto the room from ten feet up. It was screened with heavy wire.
    “Takes longer and longer to get warmed up, these days,” Arthur Clippert yelled. His voice echoed and boomed, distorted by the horrible acoustics of the court and partially drowned by the rubbery barong of balls hitting the wall.
    “What?” said the younger man, loudly.
    Clippert repeated his remark and the young man nodded. It was not clear if he really understood. Clippert continued to cuff and chase an energetically rebounding black ball. He noted with satisfaction the spread of dark sweat on his thin leather gloves. The younger man seemed quite warmed up and even anxious to start. Clippert ignored him. He whipped the little ball around the courtwith graceful ease and power, setting up rebound shots, leaping for high shots, getting more and more limber. At last he felt ready.
    The air was scented with the odor of the two men already. “Low man on the wall?” Clippert said to his younger opponent. The words blurred, but the other nodded. Clippert braced his right foot against the base of the rear wall, stepped forward and delivered a smooth, sweeping sidearm pitch. The ball struck the front wall just a fraction of an inch above the floor and sizzled back toward them.
    “Damn,” the younger man said. He didn't really try to beat the throw, making a perfunctory toss that bounded off the front wall at least a foot higher than Clippert's had. “You're up,” the young man said.
    Clippert went to the serving lane that was painted in red on the smooth floor. He dropped the ball with his left hand and as it bounced his right hand came through and whipped it against the forward wall. It was a high shot, seemingly lazy, that hit on the left, but it came out with power and glanced off the left wall, hit just short of the rear wall and rebounded with a short quick pitch.
    The young man was ready and relayed the shot forward. Clippert took the shot on the rebound and drove high again, to keep his opponent in the rear court. This time his shot came back high and the young man had to return it high.
    Clippert waited calmly for the rebound. He was bent low, facing the back wall with one hand stretched out behind him and the other on his knee for balance and to insure that he would be down low enough. He timed his swing perfectly, cupping the ball an inch from the floor and following through with a skimming, powerful sweep.
    The ball never got an inch off the floor and smacked into the forward wall just above the point where it met the floor. It did not rebound so much as simply roll back out. There was no chance for a return.
    “One-oh!” Arthur shouted. He returned to the serving lane, bouncing the ball as he went.
    An hour later they were stripping off their sweaty gear in front of their lockers. “Your problem,” Clippert told the young man, “is you just don't have a killer shot. You have a good left hand, you'vegot reach and range, good legs"—he glanced down ruefully at his own exhausted forty-year-old legs—"you've got a great sense of where the ball is going to be, good hand-eye coordination, but where's the old kill shot? Hunh, Bob?”
    “Well, you certainly have it, Mr. Clippert,” the young man said. He flushed, uncertainly. “I, uh, no offense, sir,” he stammered.
    Arthur wadded up his damp socks and tossed them into the locker. He banged the door shut and smiled grimly at the young man. “That's all right, Bob. You'd be surprised how these days the most innocent words take on added meaning. It confronts a man at every turn.”
    The two walked toward the showers, naked