No Way Out

Keeping her cool, she made another black and then a red. But this time, the cue ball drifted towards the baulk end of the table and she had to settle for a pink instead of a black. She knew that there were no more chances. After the pink she had to pot the last red and get on the black. She sank the pink and came a little too far on the final red. Not that she couldn’t pot the red. It was an easy shot in itself. But if she just rolled it in she would be on the wrong side of the black. She had to play it with pace and come off three cushions in order to get back down the table to the black. But if she played it with pace, she also had to play it with deadly accuracy.

She took the shot with pace…a lot of pace.

Alex held his breath and prayed.

The ball dropped into the pocket to shrieks of delight from the crowd. And to top it all off, the ball came to rest with perfect position to pot the black one final time.

From there Martine cleared up: yellow, green, brown, blue pink and black. But when the frame ended, there was thunderous applause. She had made a break of fifty-eight and a frame-winning score of sixty-two.

The crowd loved it when a match came down to the wire, however nerve-racking it might be for the players, and Martine found herself having to sign many autographs before she finally got to talk to Alex.

‘You were great,’ he said.

‘Do me a favor,’ she replied. ‘Don’t ever do that again.’

‘What’d I d—’

‘You know what I’m talking about. I don’t need you to get into fights for me. You don’t have to prove anything.’

‘But he was—’

She held up her hand.

‘Let’s go grab a bite,’ she said, taking his hand.

Friday, 5 June 2009 – 15.15 (#ulink_51893b23-2c4f-519b-a546-5e68b9c3dad0)

‘The reason we got a drug problem is ‘cause the man flooded the ghetto with cheap cocaine!’ the black militant shouted into the microphone. ‘And the reason things haven’t changed, brother Elias, is because we’ve still got Uncle Toms like you blaming the brothers for what the white man did to us!’

The audience broke into loud spontaneous applause, especially the large group of the black militant’s own supporters. The white supremacist on the other side of the studio struggled above the roar of approval to make his answer heard.

Elias Claymore was enjoying himself. It was fiery guests like these who made Claymore’s ratings. The militants might get the anger off their chest, but it was Claymore who’d make more money thanks to the syndication deal.

Claymore was just as black as this militant guest of his. Now in his late fifties, tall and broad-shouldered, his colorful life had run the gamut from left-wing radical to Islamic fundamentalist to neo-conservative and born-again Christian.

This was meant to be a three-way debate between secular black militants, Black Muslims and the Ku Klux Klan. But the black militant had turned the debate on conservative blacks, including Claymore himself, and made the white supremacists in the studio – who had raised the drug issue in the first place – largely irrelevant.

‘What they did to us is no excuse for what we’re doing to ourselves, brothers!’ Claymore replied. ‘We have to stop blaming others. We used to be slaves to the white man. Now we’re slaves to the white powder. I say it’s time for us to break the chains and set ourselves free once and for all!’

Again the audience burst into thunderous applause, except the small cadre of militants. Claymore looked around and saw the approval on the faces of most of the audience, black and white. The black militant had almost won them over, but Claymore knew that with a few well-chosen words he had won them back.

Then a man wearing a suit and a bow tie with a crescent on it spoke up. ‘If you think that joining the white establishment is a solution,’ said the besuited man, ‘then you’re as big a fool as he is.’

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Claymore.

‘I mean you’ve jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. You’ve betrayed your people twice over.’

He was a tall, slim, dapper figure and he was known to be Claymore’s arch enemy. The man was a leading member of the Nation of Islam. Claymore had once belonged to his sect, but had later become disillusioned with it.

‘Would you care to elaborate?’ Claymore challenged.

‘I’m talking about Islam, the religion of the black man, the religion you turned your back on when you became an apostate.’

‘An apostate to Islam or an apostate to the Nation of Islam? The two are not the same. Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam but never turned his back on Islam. Yet that didn’t save him from getting murdered.’

This was one of his favorite challenges to his former sect. Malcolm X had left the Nation of Islam in disillusion both at its policy of separatism and at the practices of its leader.

But the well-dressed man in the audience was not going to be drawn into a debate about who killed Malcolm X. The Nation of Islam had subsequently re-adopted their former enemy and tried to distance themselves from his assassination.

‘You’re not like Brother Malcolm, Claymore, and you never will be! Brother Malcolm never did what you did.’

There was wild applause at that one. Everyone knew that Elias Claymore was not quite as respectable as he had now become. But Claymore was prepared for this.

‘It’s precisely because of my own guilt that I must speak out,’ said Claymore, casting a professional eye at the studio clock. ‘As a sinner, I have a duty not to remain silent. In the meantime, let’s all say a loud “Thank God” that we’re living in a country where no one has to be a slave unless he chooses to be. Thank you all, good afternoon and God Bless America.’

There was thunderous applause. The show was over.

As one of the cameras pulled back to let him pass, Claymore walked away, talking to various eager members of the audience and shaking hands with some of them.

He left the set to be confronted by two uniformed policemen and a female detective who couldn’t have been more than thirty, if that. But what frightened him most was the implacable look on their faces. He didn’t know what was going on, but sensed that it was something serious. The faces of the TV staff hovering around them looked tense. The detective stepped forwards and flashed her shield at Claymore.

‘Elias Claymore?’

‘Yes?’ replied Claymore, slightly nervously.

‘Detective Riley. I have a warrant for your arrest.’

‘What for?’

‘Rape.’

Claymore shot a look of panic at the producer and swallowed. ‘Call Alex Sedaka. Now!’

Friday, 5 June 2009 – 15.30 (#ulink_fe1a58cc-7b2f-524f-ab17-751e85597cb6)

‘This is the best Chinese food I’ve ever tasted,’ said Alex, expertly picking up a mouthful of chicken chow mein with a pair of wooden chopsticks.

‘Best at this price,’ said Martine, her voice still tense from the incident back at the snooker tournament. ‘Let’s not exaggerate.’

They were eating at the Embassy Kitchen, just across the parking lot from the billiards club. The area itself seemed like a bit of a dump. But Alex was used to slumming it, in his line of work. And he suspected that the same was true of Martine.

‘Look, about what happened earlier…’ He was nervous, sensing that Martine was still angry.

‘You don’t have to apologize. Just don’t do it again.’

Alex felt deflated. He hadn’t been going to apologize. But he wanted to clear the air. ‘You shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of crap.’

‘And you shouldn’t have to get into fights to prove your masculinity. Okay! You fathered two children. You paid your dues in life. You win battles in court – which is the battleground where thinking men fight and win battles. I don’t need you to beat up some redneck to prove yourself.’