Players from two or three other teams sat around waiting their turn to play winners. Nylon shorts and pants and the Nike swoosh were everywhere. The court was surrounded by four walls of heavy wire fencing and was known as the cage. Everybody looked up as we arrived, Booker included.

“We got next!” Sampson called out.

The players on and off the court exchanged looks, and a couple of them grinned at Sampson’s one-liner. They knew who we were. The steady thump, thump, thump of the game ball hadn’t stopped.

Back Door was on the court. It wasn’t unusual for his team to hold winners for an entire afternoon. He had been in and out of reformatories and prisons since he was fourteen, but he could play ball. He was taunting another player who was on the court in gray suit pants and high-tops, his chest bare. “You suck,” said Back Door. “Take those church pants off. I play you in baseball, tennis, bowling, any game — you suck. Stop suckin’.”

Rakeem Powell blew the silver referee’s whistle he always carries. Rakeem works as a soccer ref in his spare time. The whistle is unorthodox, but it gets attention in noisy places. The game stopped.

The three of us walked up to Booker, who was standing near the foul circle in front of one basket. Sampson and I towered over him, but so did most of the players. It didn’t matter; he was still the best ballplayer out there. He could probably beat Sampson and me if we played him two on one.

“Awhh, leave the brother alone. He didn’t do nothin’,” one of the other, taller men complained in a deep voice. He had prison-style tattoos all over his back and arms. “He was here playin’ ball, man.”

“Door been here all day,” said somebody else. “Door been here for days. Hasn’t lost a game in days!”

Several of the young men laughed at the playground humor. Sampson turned to the biggest man on the court. “Shut the hell up. Stop dribbling that rock, too. Two young sisters been murdered. That’s why we’re here. This is no game with us.”

The dribbler shut up and picked up the game ball. The yard became strangely quiet. We could hear a jump rope striking the sidewalk in a fast rhythm. Three little girls playing just outside the cage were singsonging, “Little Miss Pinky dressed in blue, died last night at half past two.” It was a jump-rope rhyme, and sadly true around here.

I put my arm around Booker’s shoulder and walked him away from his friends.

Sampson continued to do the talking. “Booker, this is going to be so fast and easy you and your friends will be laughing your asses off about it before we’re back in our cars.”

“Yeah, uh-huh,” said Joseph Booker, trying to be cool in the extreme heat of Sampson’s and my glare.