Woods grinned and I knew he was caught up in feeling superior. I faked with my right, then grabbed his gun hand with my left. Doing what I knew he would, he tried to pull back, freeing his gat. I let his arm go in that direction, bringing my elbow up and into his nose in the same movement.

"Dammit," he hollered.

The whack made him loosen up and I snatched the gun away. I backhanded him with the business end of the thing. There was a line of red where the skin had broken open over his nose. There was respect in his eyes as he looked at me over the hand he held to his wound.

"Look, Zelmont."

"Shut the hell up." I was enjoying this. The tingling I got in my gut was like sex with Davida. "Don't say a goddamn thing unless it's how soon you gonna have my cash."

"What you better do," a voice croaked from behind me, "is take your niggerish behavior out of my establishment." The man with the frog voice was a round-bellied brother in suspenders and an athletic T-shirt. His ugly, greasy face had a Barons cap pulled over his activator-starved Jheri curl. There was a Mossberg pump laying on the counter with a choke on the end of the barrel. He stood behind it, a pudgy hand resting on that bad boy.

I didn't pull the piece," I said, eyeing Woods again.

"Say, man, I don't give a fuck who did what. Take your bullshit outside." The Mossberg was in his hands.

"Come on." I motioned to Woods with the pistol.

He tucked in his lips.

"Don't try to be slick. Do what I tell you."

We marched past the slit eyes of the owner and came out into the sunlight on Atlantic. Several of the dudes from inside also tagged along. I put the gun in my back pocket since it didn't seem too good an idea to broadcast the piece.

"Well, what about it, Harper?"

He looked from side to side as if an answer was floating around in his lopsided head. I know you heard about my mama."

I slapped him with the pistol again. "Your mama ain't the one that signed a loan agreement. She can't read no way." I returned the gun to my back pocket.

"You think I don't know you been ridin' all over town lookin' to collect your debts?" His voice went up higher with fear and anger. "But if I ain't got it, I ain't got it."

He was gonna step to me and see if I was ready to up the play I cracked him hard on the jaw with my fist. He went down on one knee, sobbing like the punk he was.

"Oh God," one of the men watching said.

"Now what you gotta say?" I kicked Woods in the face. He dropped over like a kid's doll on the pavement.

"Hey, you gonna kill him if you keep that up," somebody said.

I didn't care. Motherfuckah tried to bitch me up in public. You don't do that to Zelmont Raines. Unlike some wide receivers who were scared to take a hit, I didn't sweat that kind of action. You didn't get your name in the record books 'cause you couldn't perform. Art Monk, Warfield, them dudes didn't hear footsteps. They kept their minds on the ball, getting banged up time and time again as they caught the pass. No matter, they got up and went back to the job.

" 'I ain't got it' won't do, Harper." There was a new gash over his left eye and he had a hand over it as he looked up at me. Blood leaked out between his fingers. I decide who owes me and when they owe me. You get my fuckin' money together."

"Okay, Zelmont, okay."

"That's right, man. You better make it okay."

I walked away with all eyes on me. I felt good. I'd handled my business and I knew this was a sign things were bound to get better. I felt so good, I drove over to the Pico Union district near downtown and copped a dime bag of rock. I wasn't getting back into bad habits. The thing about being in rehab three times was I knew the signs, I knew when I was getting out of control. This little jolt was just to give me an edge to keep my senses sharp. After I smoked up at my crib I changed to my sweats. Then I jogged over to Runyon Canyon Park, not too far away.

I forgot there would be kids around, it being summer. Usually it was only on the weekend where you had to put up with the crumb snatchers and their yacking and goofing while their parents walked or ran with the family dog. But there weren't too many of them, plus I had my buzz on. Naturally there were the 40-something blonde types talking about the latest colonic or how they had to get the dishwasher fixed or some other ordinary bullshit.

There were a few hotties, models, and wannabe actresses trying to keep their shit tight. Out and about too were a few fags, cruising for a set of hairy, buffed legs to wrap around come nightfall. And, of course, a few Hollywood studs, execs of some sort getting their workout while trying to figure out how to screw the next shithead on the ladder.

I was going up the path that went around the big mountain. A young Latino in blue short shorts and a Yale logo sweat top, his black hair colored with streaks of bright red, was walking down with his cocker spaniel and gave me the once-over as I moved past.

"Excuse me, didn't we meet at one of Napoleon Graham's parties?" He had a long earring dangling from one ear. It was shaped like something that fell off a chandelier.

Great, now the bungholers were the only ones who recognized me. "Could be, man. I gotta hit it. Sorry," I mumbled, churning my knees hard. My hip socket began to ache as I rounded the bend. The grinding pain made me want to stop several times but I kept putting one foot in front of the other. Sweat was making my lips salty, and every time my right leg came up it was like a jab with the point of a knife in my upper thigh.

Come on, Zelmont, it ain't nothing to do but to do it. I huffed, then grunted, clamped my teeth, and kept moving, eyes straight ahead.

I made the bend, where the path leveled off and you could see out onto the city in several directions. I stopped, bending over more from the pulsing in my hip than being out of breath. Straightening up, I wiped my face with my old Falcons top. Not far away to the left I could see my house tucked up on its hill. The thing looked solid and safe, like the day I first spotted it running this mountain. I was up for Rookie of the Year and knew I had to have a pad like that.

People assumed I did it to have the fly chicks and swinging parties. Have me a cool address and be able to look down on the city where I was raised. Well, I guess there was something to that. Hell, my mama never had nothing but the hot cramped apartment me and my two sisters were raised in growing up near the Coliseum.

We didn't skip no meals, but there wasn't too much extra either. I made do with out-of-fashion kicks when all my friends were getting the next new thing. When I made it to the pros, I set my sights on getting used to things I never had as a child. I should have been smarter at holding on to the money. I could have listened to people, including my mother. But there was always the next pass I was gonna catch, the next product I was gonna pimp.

Them days ain't done yet, I promised myself. I took a deep breath and started a slow jog down the other side.

Thursday, me and Davida, in her used Mercedes Kompressor roadster, went over to the NFL owners' set at the Locker Room. Graham's place, on the corner of 11th Street and Georgia, was real classy. Across the way was the Staples Center with its glass and metal arena and music auditorium. The place was shaped like a giant 'Q' knocked on the side.

There had been a lot of rigmarole in getting the NFL owners to agree to bring a team back to town. They pretty much wanted the City of L.A. to kiss their collective butts and mortgage the public piggy bank to build a new stadium complex, like Cleveland and San Francisco had done. But the crew of local high rollers who'd put the deal together, along with city representatives, played it cool. They knew the NFL needed the number two media markettheir ad revenues had been down for several years. So they held out for a better deal, and got it. Ellison Stadanko, who'd made his money in solid waste retrieval, was a pal of one of the movers and shakers and got the inside track on being the main backer of the Barons. And the Coliseum, built for the Olympics in '32, fixed up for the traitorous Al Davis in the '80s, got a new life and a dome to go with it. The Sports Arena next door was hollowed out and turned into a food and bar court that led to a five-story parking structure.