Known to Evil by Walter Mosley

SIXTY-NINTH, ON THE far East Side, was a twelve-story building that had a tennis court on the roof. There well-heeled men and women rented one of the three courts for $120 per half-hour to play tennis under a Manhattan sun or moon.
    Shad Tandy taught those who could afford his rates how to strengthen their backhands and their serves.
    According to the records given me by Rinaldo, Shad was the son of a woman who once had been wealthy. She was poor now but somehow had managed to get her son into the right schools on scholarships and spit. He had the pedigree and manicure of a young Kennedy and the bank account of the man who tried to take my dollar in the park.
    Shad was a shade under six feet, with sandy hair and deep-brown eyes. He had the lithe body of a tennis player, with strong legs and lean arms.
    The middle-aged woman he was teaching was thrilled to have him hug her from behind to show how the backhand felt in its execution. I was sure that she paid the four dollars a minute just for that physical closeness once, or maybe twice, a week.
    I sat at a table which stood upon a synthetic patch of grass reserved for those waiting to use the courts. I had paid for an impromptu lesson from the thirty-year-old Tandy. The country was going through a serious recession and there were many gaps in the schedule of the courts. I had a briefcase full of money, and so the $120 was nothing to me.
    "Can I get you something to drink, Mr. McGill?" Lorna Filomena asked.
    The twenty-year-old brunette wore a fetching white tennis outfit replete with short-short skirt, white tennis shoes, and bluish ankle socks.
    "You got some cognac in that cabinet?" I asked her.
    "No, sir," she said, still smiling, "we only have bottles of water."
    "Sparkling?"
    "Flat."
    "Why not?" I said. "Man cannot live by bread alone."
    She went to the door that led to the elevator and bent over. From somewhere she came out with a small bottle of Evian.
    Handing me the chilled plastic container, she asked, "Are you really here to play tennis?"
    "Why? Don't I look like a tennis player?"
    "People don't usually play in a suit and street shoes."
    "Don't you like my suit?"
    "It's really very nice," she said, putting a spin on the third word to show that she meant what she said. "But it's just not tennis wear."
    "Why would I have given you all that money if I didn't want to learn?" I asked.
    "I don't know," Lorna speculated. "You asked for Mr. Tandy by name, and I've heard that he's had trouble with people he owes money to."
    The playful tone didn't disguise the girl's dislike of Shad Tandy.
    "I look like a leg-breaker to you?" I asked.
    "I don't know." She leaned against the wall and cocked her head. She really was very pretty. "You sure don't look like a tennis player."
    "Who does he owe money to?" I asked.
    "Shad's mother is a total bitch," Miss Filomena said. "She has to live like she's rich, but her family lost their money before Shad was born. His father's still in jail. Shad's always doing something to get money. Sometimes maybe he goes too far."
    "Did you and Shad have a thing?"
    She thought for six seconds or so, decided that she didn't have anything to lose, and said, "Yeah, we did. He gave me all kinds of trinkets and told me even more lies. Then his mother said I wasn't good enough, and he cried when he told me it was over."
    "So if I was here to beat a few dollars out of him you wouldn't exactly mind?"
    "It would probably take me ten minutes to get to the phone to call the police."
    I like honesty in the people I talk to. Nine times out of eleven, truth trumps good intentions.
    "Hey, Lorna," Shad Tandy said.
    He was running up to us. His middle-aged student had disappeared from the court.
    "This is your next lesson, Shad," she said in a very friendly, even perky, tone. "Mr. McGill is a walk-in but I knew you wanted the classes."
    They had certainly been lovers. Shad heard the threat in her pleasant voice. He looked at me, saw what she had seen, considered running,