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said Ingalls.
    â€œYeah, but what does he do?”
    â€œAnything he can to score something with a prospect. He’s into a power trip.”
    â€œYou mean like giving them shoes?”
    â€œYeah, like shoes, or sweats, or drugs, or helpin’ out a family member. It’s usually the kind of player who doesn’t have parents to guide him, or a coach who’s not heavy into the recruiting process. The street agent is lookin’ to be the middle man. That way, all the coaches and recruiters will have to go through him.”
    For a moment, T.J. was uncomfortably aware that Buddy might have been describing Tyron, or even—God forbid—himself. The naivete he felt was equally uncomfortable because it was the feeling of being in over your head. When you were in over your head, that was when you became a victim. Nevertheless, he asked Buddy, “So what about Bee Edwards?”
    â€œYeah, he’s one of ’em.”
    â€œDoes he, like, work for Nike, though?”
    â€œHe will work for them if he thinks it’ll get him ahead. He’ll work for anybody as long as it puts him where he wants to be. Street agents work for themselves, that’s the bottom line.”
    T.J. knew he needed more information if he expected to really be in touch with this unwholesome plane. And it was obviously important. But he could tell from Buddy’s tone of voice that he wanted to concentrate on the game itself instead of having more conversations about street agents. It was time to drop the subject.

FOUR
    There were no games that night. Instead, they were having a film and a motivational speaker. The speaker was Digger Phelps, the former Notre Dame coach and current TV broadcaster, but T.J. had no enthusiasm for a bunch of rah-rah about staying in school, doing your homework, and keeping away from drugs. He’d never been a user in his life and as for schoolwork, he was already an A/B student.
    He escaped to the footbridge where he could be alone. Every muscle in his body was stiff from so many basketball games. He let his feet swing over the edge. He smoked a cigarette while he watched the sun go down, and then he lit up another one. It was so quiet he could hear the singing and shouting from the bluff on the far side. He had heard there was a Holy Roller camp over there, but he didn’t know much about it.
    When it was dusk, he could barely make out the gorge below, but he could sure make out the smell; there wasn’t enough water in the creek bed to flush it with movement. T.J. wondered briefly if he was brave enough to stay here until after dark before making his way back to the dorm. Most of the players at the Full Court camp, because of their prevailing urban origins, were afraid to be out alone after dark amid the timber that covered the bluffs. The forest dark was what Ishmael called it. Tyron referred to it as the darkest dark .
    It made T.J. uneasy too. If he had a higher level of courage than his fellow campers, it was probably owing to the reconnaissance he’d conducted when they first arrived. He knew the lay of the land a little better than most of the others. This fact, along with the faint but functional pole lights that were positioned occasionally along the walking trails, provided him with enough orientation for nighttime confidence.
    He was in the process of reconstructing the conversations he’d had about Tyron’s new pair of Nike Magic Carpets when a girl approached. She came from his left. If she had been sitting nearby, he hadn’t noticed. “Can you take out splinters?” she asked.
    T.J. was startled; he asked her to say it again.
    â€œDo you know anything about taking out splinters? I think I’ve got one in my arm here where I can’t see it.” She seemed very unselfconscious as she sat down beside him. She was wearing a short, midriff T-shirt without sleeves and a pair of cutoff blue jeans. She lifted her right arm to show him the