The Devil and Doodazzle Dakins

It's a well-known fact that the angels of God wage an eternal war with the minions of Satan for the souls of men. Less well known is the means by which that war is conducted. The literature of ancient mythology generally depicts the battle as bombastic, if not bloody (angels and demons don't bleed when defeated, as we know, but tend to disappear in clouds of light and puffs of smoke, respectively): The heavenly host hurls down thunderbolts and the denizens of hell fling fireballs up into the firmament. These tales are entertaining but terribly outdated.

Actually, ever since 1950, the heavenly war has been fought with an astral basketball.

To be specific, the Almighty, in His infinite wisdom, decreed that thenceforth (or until He changed His mind) the cosmic duel of good and evil would be decided by a game of basketball to be played by two teams, one from heaven and one from hell. The divine team He named the Cloudwalkers and the demonic team He named the Hot Shots.

According to the rules He laid down, the basketball would be a luminous transparent sphere. The face of the person whose soul was to be played for would appear in the sphere and remain there until his fate was decided by which basket he was shot through. That is, if the Cloud-walkers put the sphere of light through the Hot Shots' basket, the soul would be destined for heaven upon its departure from earth. If, on the other hand, the Hot Shots sank the sphere, the soul would be speedily transported to the fire pits. Then another person's face would appear in the globe and the team that had just lost the point would make the in-bounds pass.

Taking an individual soul's spiritual condition into account (because, after all, He is fair), He further decreed that the relative goodness or sinfulness of a man's life would affect the game in this way: If a man lived a progressively sinful life, the odds increased that his soul would come up when the Hot Shots were shooting a free throw; conversely, if a man lived an increasingly virtuous life, the odds increased that his soul would appear when the Cloudwalkers were shooting a free throw. The soul possessing a more or less middling number of both vices and virtues would most likely come into the game while the ball was in regular play.

And, finally, because no great basketball player had ever attained either angelhood or demonhood, the Almighty, to ensure the highest level of competition, commanded that when the soul of any human basketball player was scored by either side, his skills at round ball would be absorbed by the angel or the demon who had made the shot. It was not necessary that the human ballplayer be dead already but merely that his eventual destination already be determined.

The Cloudwalkers, with the angel Gabriel at center, got the hang of the game faster, despite having to play in long white robes. The Hot Shots, with Lucifer at center, were so evil-tempered when the game began that they couldn't cooperate with one another. As a result, the Cloudwalkers, through superior teamwork, quickly took the lead and also won the skills of several professional basketball stars, while the demons were able to win only the skills of a few college players.

By the mid-Sixties, the Cloudwalkers' lead in souls scored seemed insurmountable. But over the next 15 years, drugs, loose women, gambling and six-digit salaries took their toll on the moral condition of America's professional basketball players, and some of them-some of the best, in fact-lived such sinful lives that their souls increasingly began to come up on free throws by the Hot Shots.

Both teams were extremely accurate on free throws, but the best percentage was owned by the demon Lucifer, who was averaging 99 out of 100. He sank so many professional basketball stars (and absorbed their skills) during the Seventies that he soon became the Hot Shots' most potent offensive weapon. He was so good (at basketball, of course) that he single-handedly brought hell's team back into serious contention.

One Christmas Day, when the Lord declared that the game be suspended for 24 hours in honor of His son's birthday, Lucifer, after ruminating in the Hot Shots' sauna (the coolest part of their locker room, the rest being composed of blazing coals), concluded that he needed the soul of one more player to put the Hot Shots in the (continued on page 122)Doodazzle Dakins(continued from page 116) win column; and not just a good player, a player with an unstoppable shot.

With his supernatural vision, he scanned the N.B.A. for the man he wanted. His gaze fell upon a tall, lanky, dark-brown figure wearing the colors of the Chicago Bulls. He'd never seen this man before, so Lucifer assumed he was a rookie. At the moment, the player was dribbling down-court through a full-court press applied by the Boston Celtics. He weaved through the defenders with a nifty combination of dribbling techniques. Then, as he approached the basket, he soared into the air like a black falcon, arms outspread, the ball held firmly in his right hand. With Celtics surrounding him, he raised his right arm as if to shoot, drawing an ill-timed leap from the man directly in front of him, then switched the ball behind his back to his left hand, double pumped, swiveling his body 180 degrees to the left, tossed the ball from his left hand to his right and released a soft, high-arching hook shot that didn't shake the net when it pierced the rim.

"Goddamn!" shouted Lucifer. The temperature in the sauna suddenly increased by 1000 degrees.

"Ahhh, Your ass!" he shouted to heaven, leaping up and clutching his smoldering buttocks.

Thus did the Devil first become aware of Danny "Doodazzle" Dakins and his unstoppable shot, the Doodazzler. And he wanted it.

Knowing that God knows all things, including the latest poop on any creature's spiritual condition, Lucifer petitioned the Lord for the morning line on Daniel S. Dakins, Afro-American, age 22.

"He has not lived a holy life or even a very good one," replied the Lord, "but his sins don't yet weigh heavily against him. It's unlikely that he'll come up in a free-throw situation for your side if he keeps living the way he has thus far."

"But he won't," vowed Lucifer. And with a gleam in his beady red eyes, he vanished, bound for earth and the Chicago Stadium.

•

Six-foot-eight-inch Danny Dakins ducked his head and blinked at the television-camera lights as he emerged from the players' entrance to the cheers of 300 waiting fans. He'd just spearheaded the Bulls to their 16th consecutive win, leading both teams in scoring and rebounds. The day before, the Bulls' management had torn up his contract and given him another worth $1,000,000 a year for five years. It was a good investment, because the stadium was packed every night with folks who came from as far as Madison just to see Dakins play; more specifically, to see his shot, the shot the other players were already trying to imitate but couldn't: the Doodazzler.

"Doodazzle! Doodazzle!" they yelled, closing in around his white rented limo. He slipped his long legs across the back seat, slammed the door, pulled down the shades and said to the chauffeur, "Take me home."

The driver began inching the massive automobile through the crowd, and before he was out of the parking lot, Dakins was already pouring himself a shot of cognac from the back-seat bar and thinking about how he would look on the television film clips when he got home. He'd scored 48 points and won the game with a spectacular Doodazzler at the buzzer that left Celtics forward Larry Bird sprawled on the floor.

When the chauffeur stopped the limo in front of Dakins' lake-front apartment building, the doorman opened the limousine door, said, "Good evening, Mr. Dakins" and stood at attention. Dakins stepped out, slipped him a buck and turned to the chauffeur with another one. But the chauffeur, whom Dakins couldn't recall ever seeing before, was holding a large gift-wrapped box out of the car window.

"Mr. Dakins," he said, "I've been a fan of yours ever since you were at DePaul, and I'm honored to meet you. I just want to give you this little Christmas present to show my appreciation for the excitement you've brought this great city."

His words tumbled out so fast, and with such urgency, that Dakins hesitated.

The driver, a swarthy man with thick arched eyebrows and thin, nearly nonexistent lips, looked up at him, and their eyes locked. The man's gaze was penetrating, hypnotic. In the glow of the streetlights, his pupils seemed red, the color of burning embers.

"Please take the gift, Mr. Dakins," he insisted, extending it toward the basketball star. "If you take it," he added, his lips curling slightly, "it will make me very happy."

Dakins reluctantly accepted the package, saying, "Well, hey, man. I always like to make my fans happy."

"Oh, thank you for accepting it, sir," said the driver. "I hope you enjoy it." He put the car into gear and, as he pulled away, said, "It's imported from very far away."

Upstairs in his penthouse living room overlooking Belmont Harbor, Dakins poured himself a cognac, popped a tape into his quadraphonic sound system, turned on the fake fireplace and changed into a red-satin robe given to him by one of his lucky female fans. It said Doodazzle in white-velvet letters on the back. Then, while sitting on the deep-pile burgundy carpet, waiting for the sports news, he opened the box and was surprised to discover a large, ornately carved water pipe inside. It was made of dull-golden metal that he presumed to be brass, and it was coated with greasy, acrid soot, as though it had been retrieved from a fire. While inspecting the pipe bowl, which was engraved with strange symbols, he found a crimson ball the size of a pea inside. Thinking it was perhaps hashish or opium, he sniffed it and quickly recoiled from an odor so pungent that it made his eyes water.

"Phew!" he exclaimed. "The only hip Christmas present anybody gives me and it stinks like hell."

Nonetheless, since he had nothing else to do until the sports news, he decided to polish it up and smoke the remainder of a bag of sinsemilla he'd stashed away for special occasions. He got a rag and started rubbing the pipe bowl vigorously. To his amazement, a thin stream of fog began seeping from the pipe and quickly took the form of a beautiful black woman.

"Holy smoke!" he said, backing away from the apparition.

"Not exactly," replied his unexpected visitor. The upper half of her body had begun to solidify, but her thighs, calves and feet were still a funnel of mist.

"Well, I'll be damned," whispered Dakins, circling the floating figure, blinking and pinching himself.

"Now you're on the right track," she said, laughing wickedly. Her body was now complete except for her feet. She wore only a white jeweled headband, a thin veil over her face and a diaphanous golden skirt through which Dakins could clearly see her shapely legs and buttocks. Her bare breasts seemed luminous, so silky and perfectly round that he knew they had not been created on this earth. Her arms, slender and as smooth as polished ebony, moved sinuously around her body, as though she were covered with live snakes. As Dakins looked closer, he realized that she actually had four arms.

"Saints alive," he uttered, awe-struck.

"Shhh!" she hissed, putting one of 16 ring-laden fingers to her lips. "Don't let Lucifer hear you say that."

"Who's Lucifer?" Dakins asked. "And who are you?"

"Who's Lucifer?" she replied with astonishment. "You mean you never heard (continued on page 206)Doodazzle Dakins(continued from page 122) of the fallen angel?"

"Mnn," said Dakins, "yeah, I remember Grandma told me something like that. He's supposed to be the Devil, right?"

"Well, there's others," she said, "like Asmodeus and Satan and Leviathan, but Lucifer's about as bad as they get. He's bad."

"And who are you?" asked Dakins, somewhat puzzled by her speech, which not only wasn't foreign as he'd somehow expected but was definitely from back home.

"Lady Fatima," she said, tilting her chin proudly.

"And what are you?"

"You're really an ignorant dude, you know that? What do you think I am?"

"A genie?"

"A jinni, really, which is what the Moslems call us. Jinn are lots of fun, or haven't you heard?" As she said this, she batted her long eyelashes and pursed her glistening lips invitingly.

"Uh, no, I hadn't heard," said Dakins, suddenly wanting to touch her, "but I'd like to find out for myself."

"My wish is your command," she said, sliding her hands down her thighs, across her breasts and up her stomach at the same time.

"Well, then, come on out of the bottle," said Dakins, untying his robe. "I'm ready."

"I can see that," she cooed lasciviously, "except I can't get completely out of the bottle unless you smoke that little red ball you found in the pipe."

"Why not?"

"Lucifer's rules, honey, not mine."

"But that little ball stinks. If you can do magic, why don't you change it into some base or some hash or something?"

"I can't do that," she sighed. "But let me tell you, if you want to get high, you won't get no higher on anything than you will on that stuff. Talk about high, you'll be in the stratosphere, baby."

"Oh, yeah? What is it?"

"Well, I can't tell you exactly. But let's just say this is the stuff that makes the Devil high. So you know it's got to be some wicked shit."

"You're joking."

"Serious as a heart attack."

Dakins reflected upon his predicament for a moment, then reached into the mist at the bottom of her legs. "You mind?"

"Go right ahead."

He extracted the little red ball and sniffed it again, hoping that perhaps it wouldn't smell as bad as he remembered. It smelled worse. He dropped it back into the pipe.

"I don't smoke anything that I don't know what it is or where it came from. And I particularly don't smoke stuff that smells as bad as that. I can buy the best grass and coke in the world. Why should I smoke this shit?"

"Because then you and me can have some fun," she said, parting her gossamer skirt to reveal her naked thighs. She undulated her hips, made little sipping noises with her tongue and beckoned to him with two of her hands.

Dakins suddenly chuckled and shook his head.

"What's so funny?" she demanded, puzzled and slightly embarrassed.

Dakins kept chuckling as he switched on the television. "You see, I always wondered whether the Devil was a white dude or a black dude. And now I know."

"Oh?" said Fatima with a raised eyebrow. "Which is he?"

"He's gotta be white," said Dakins, settling down to watch the late-night-news replays of the game, "and very old. Only a very old white man would try to buy a nigger's soul these days with a four-armed belly dancer and a ball of stinky dope. You and whoever sent you here ought to get hip to the Eighties, baby. I mean, do you know who I am? Look there on the television. That's me with number twenty-six. You see that white dude jumping up and down in my face? That's Larry Bird. He's a fucking machine, do you hear me? The ultimate basketball robot."

Fatima's aura dimmed. She sulked. Dakins was completely absorbed in the television and she had never been so utterly ignored.

"Now watch this move I put on him. See that? He don't understand that shit. Look at 'im, all confused. Now watch this...." He leaped to his feet and clapped his hands as he watched himself leap over Bird's outstretched arms, dumping the shot and Bird in one motion. "Good God Amighty, did you see...what the....?"

His loud invocation of the Deity had caused the jinni to shriek as if in great pain, and acrid smoke began pouring from her ears.

"Hey, baby, what's the matter? How come you're doing that? You're gonna stink up my crib."

"Then please, don't ever shout that word again," she said, quivering as though expecting another bolt of pain. "It makes Lucifer mad, and he sometimes takes it out on me real bad."

"What do you mean he takes it out on you?"

"Better you don't know," she sighed. "Just promise that you won't call His"--she pointed up with one hand--"name or His son's name again in my presence."

Dakins turned off the television and sat on the carpet facing the jinni. She had begun to return to her normal glow, and there was no more smoke coming from her ears.

"Feel better?"

She wiped away her tears and nodded.

"Good, but we got a problem. Or should I say you got a problem. Now that I see how serious this dude Lucifer can get, you can be damn sure I ain't gonna smoke that stuff. On the other hand, if you just want to come on out and have some good lovin', here I am. I don't know how a jinni's sex drive works, but it seems to me that an ordinary woman would get pretty horny being locked up in a water pipe for...how long?"

"None of your business," she said, her eyes blazing with anger, "and I told you, unless you smoke, you can't stroke."

"Listen, Duchess Fatima, or whoever you are," Dakins retorted, leaping to his feet and slapping his chest, "I'm Danny Dakins. I'm worth a million bucks a year. All I got to do is score thirty points a game and I can get all the cars, dope and two-armed chicks a man could ever want without the Devil's help. And that's good enough for me. Get on back in the pipe, baby."

With a sudden flash of light, two of her arms disappeared.

"Is that better?" she asked with a conciliatory smile, adding, "The other two are optional. Some like 'em, some don't."

"I like that better, yeah," said Dakins, "but I'm still not smoking that stinkball. Now, get back in the pipe, woman, before I take a bellows to your ass."

In a split second, she vanished, sucked back into the pipe in a whirlwind of mist.

As soon as she disappeared, Dakins snatched up the pipe, opened the glass door that led to the balcony adjoining his living room and was about to heave the pipe down onto the street, 26 stories below, when curiosity about what secrets the jinni might hold got the better of him.

He went back into his living room and rubbed the pipe a few times, then stood back as the jinni began to take shape.

"You summoned Lady Fatima?" she asked coolly.

"Yeah, I summoned Lady Fatima," said Dakins, mocking her, "and I want Lady Fatima to answer me a few questions."

"If it is within my power, I will answer whatever you ask."

"OK, then, tell me why Lucifer wants me to smoke the stinkball."

"Because you have something he wants. That's all I can tell you."

"You mean," said Dakins, swallowing hard, "my...my soul?"

"Well, of course he wants your soul, dummy, but that's not as important as something else. Now, don't ask me about what Lucifer wants no more. 'Cause I'm not gonna answer."

"Well, then," said Dakins, his voice rising with exasperation, "just tell me what Lucifer can do to me if I don't smoke that thing." He didn't really want to know, but he had to ask.

"You ever hear the song If It Weren't for Bad Luck, I Wouldn't Have No Luck at All? That's gonna be you, baby, for days. I mean some baaad luck. I've seen him give men bad luck for two, three years straight. But usually, they come to him in six months, begging to give him anything he wants. The brave ones off themselves, but then he gets them anyway, suicide being a major sin."

"But why me?" shouted Dakins, throwing his hands up. "I mean, I ain't never fucked over nobody bad enough to deserve this kind of shit. All I ever did was play ball and try to get my black ass out of the ghetto. Moses Malone did the same thing, and so did Magic Johnson...."

"Magic who? Is he a jinni?"

"No, never mind. The point is, how come the Devil didn't send the pipe to one of them? Why me?"

"Like I said," replied the jinni, folding all four arms across her luminous breasts, " 'cause you got something he wants."

Dakins pondered upon what he possessed that a Devil could possibly want. There were thousands of richer men in the world, hundreds more famous, millions more virtuous. Certainly, the Devil didn't want to be 6'8" tall, nor could he possibly want to be black. Completely stumped, he decided to try a different approach.

"Uh, listen here, Lady Fatima," he said, circling the pipe with his hands folded behind his back, like a defense attorney who thinks he has a witness for the prosecution by the short hairs. "You have to tell me anything I command you to tell me except exactly what Lucifer wants, right?"

"Right."

"OK. So tell me your real name. The name you had before you got put in the pipe."

Her shining body suddenly emitted a shower of infrared sparks, and she angrily put her hands on her hips and turned away from him. He waited.

"Yvonne Brown," she whispered.

"And when was the last time you had an ordinary body, Yvonne?"

"Nineteen forty-six, in New Orleans."

"And how did Lucifer come into possession of you?"

"Well"-her shoulders slumped and the light emanating from her skin diminished somewhat-"I asked him to take me over." She laughed bitterly and shook her head. "I actually worshiped him, the bastard."

"Why?"

"Oh, it's a long story. I was raised in a strict family of Holy Rollers. My father was a preacher and my mother was, too, in her own way. She preached at me all the time about sin. They made me feel so guilty that I started worshiping the Devil just to get back at them. One night, when I was seventeen, I sneaked out of the house, went to my father's church, hung the cross over the altar upside down and performed a ceremony to make the Devil come and take me. He did."

"And what did you get out of the deal?"

"Well, I get to live until the end of the universe as long as I stay in this pipe, and every few years or so I get to make love to some very powerful, rich or famous man who has a heavy jones for stacked black women."

"In other words, you're a special temptation that Lucifer sends men who already have the things that most people would sell their souls for."

"Well, yeah," she sighed, "me and the red ball. The red ball goes along with me."

"Mnn. Now tell me just a couple more things," said Dakins. "Do jinn have hungers like ordinary people? Like for food and sex?"

She paused a moment before she answered. "Yes, but only when we're out of the bottle."

"Good," exclaimed Dakins, smiling triumphantly. "It just so happens that tonight, I'm going on a three-week road trip. I command you to stay out of the pipe until I return."

Again, she sent forth a shower of infrared sparks. "You can't do that to me! That's torture! I'll go crazy!"

But Dakins ignored her and went to his bedroom to pack his suitcase. When he looked in on her just before he left, she was still floating there, arms folded over her beautiful breasts, sulking.

•

When he returned home, he immediately went to the living room to check on her. The pipe still sat where he had left it, but the jinni was gone. He began to panic; then he heard a tiny voice squeak, "Danny? Is that you? I'm in the pipe bowl."

He bent over and, sure enough, there she was, no bigger than the tip of his little finger.

"How come you're so small?"

"It helps keep down the desires of the body if the body is very small, so I made myself this size."

"I see," laughed Dakins, picking up the pipe. He set it down on the kitchen table and began rustling around in a large paper bag he'd brought home. "I stopped at the Soul Queen and picked up a feast. We've got ham hocks and greens, black-eyed peas and rice, corn bread and pecan pie. Will you join me?"

She refused to speak to him, so he made himself a generous plate and sat down to eat, smacking his lips loudly. When he'd finished his first helping, he reached over to the pipe and dropped a tiny morsel of ham hock into it, then began serving himself a second helping. In a moment, she enlarged to about three inches and floated out of the pipe. Even in such a tiny face, no one could mistake the look of hunger. He speared some greens and a larger piece of meat on a fork and held it in front of her.

"You want more?"

She nodded, her eyes riveted to the fork.

"First tell me what I want to know."

"But if I tell you, he'll torture me in the fire pits for a thousand years," she cried out, and began to weep uncontrollably.

"Look, if I tell you to stay outside the pipe for a thousand years, you'll have to do that, too, and that's a long time to be horny and hungry. Tell me what I want to know. Maybe there's some way I can help you out of this mess."

"I only wish you could," she sobbed, "but you can't. You're only a man and Lucifer is a demon. You can't imagine how powerful demons are."

"Oh, no, you're wrong about that, sugar," said Dakins ruefully. "I found out how powerful the son of a bitch can be on this road trip. I can't even tell you all the shit that happened to me. I fouled out of five games in the first quarter, I missed two planes and got fined three grand by the team, I got busted with a joint in my car in Philly and the newspapers made a big thing out of it and, worst of all, I averaged only ten points a game for the whole sixteen-game trip. The sportswriters are getting all over my ass: They say I'm overrated and overpaid, and the coach told the Tribune he was thinking about benching me. Benching me, Danny Dakins!"

"I...I'm not surprised," she said, lowering her eyes. "And you may not believe this, but I'm very sorry."

"Well, if you're really sorry, tell me what he wants," pleaded Dakins. "Maybe if I know what he wants, I can work out a deal for you and me both. If, that is, you want to live a life lasting only sixty or seventy years, like the rest of us."

"I'd give anything to be an ordinary woman again," she said, wiping her tears away with her veil, "but I wouldn't ask you to give up what he wants for me."

"Well, damn it, what is it?" yelled Dakins, slamming his fist on the table. He snatched the pipe and brought her face within inches of his. She blinked at him in awe, for he must have seemed a giant to her; seeing fear in her eyes for the first time, he took pity on her. He gave her the bite of ham hocks and greens.

As soon as she finished what he'd given her, she grew a foot larger. He gave her more and in a few minutes, she had resumed her normal size. He handed her her own plate and fork.

"You know," she said, smiling sheepishly at him, "I didn't think you were going to let me eat. Thank you. I want to repay you, so I'll tell you one more thing that you don't know. Lucifer is coming to get you, me and the pipe in exactly ten days."

Dakins suddenly felt ill. He rushed to the sink, thinking he would gag, and splashed cold water on his face. When the queasiness subsided, he turned to face her. "Give me the red ball," he said.

She smiled sadly and her eyes misted over for a moment. "I thought, somehow, you might be different," she sighed, then reached into the pipe beneath her ankles and handed him the red ball.

Dakins looked her straight in the eyes, said, "I am different," dropped the ball into the garbage disposal and flipped the switch. Her eyes grew wide with amazement.

"Now," he commanded, "tell me what it was."

"Well, since you've done that, I suppose I might as well. It was the Devil's pride."

"Pride?"

"Pride is what you might call the free base of the demons. They smoke it in big brass pipes, like this one, and it gives them the courage to duke with God. Without it, they're all wimps. When an ordinary dude takes just one hit off the demons' pipe, he becomes like a demon himself. Hitler smoked some, you know. And, as your grandmomma might have told you, pride is one of the seven big sins. Ordinary human pride can put you in purgatory for centuries, but once you inhale the Devil's pride, you're guaranteed to barbecue for the duration."

Realizing how close he'd come to taking just one little hit of the red ball, Dakins shuddered. And when he thought about what awaited him ten days hence, he shuddered again. He was lost in thought when Yvonne floated around behind him and began massaging his shoulders. Her hands emitted a penetrating warmth that soothed his deepest muscles.

"Boy, you sure would make some man a hell of a wife with an act like this."

"You know," she whispered huskily, "I wouldn't mind being somebody's wife."

"Somebody's wife? Just anybody's wife?" teased Dakins.

"Wellll ... no. How about Mr. Doodazzle Dakins' wife?"

"Oh, please. Not Doodazzle. I hate that name. That's the dumbest name I could imagine being pegged with."

"Really?" she said, genuinely surprised. "I thought you gave that name to yourself."

"Good grief," groaned Dakins, "I must seem as big-headed as the sportswriters say I am. No, baby, that wasn't my idea. I got the name after my college team, DePaul, won the N.C.A.A. championship. Some television interviewer asked me if I thought I was the greatest college player of all time. It was an asinine question, so I gave him an asinine answer. I said, 'No, but I do dazzle, don't I?' The next morning, I bought a paper with the headline 'Doodazzle Dakins Leads Depaul to Victory.' Nearly lost my breakfast."

Fatima broke into laughter and clapped her hands with delight. "That's the cutest story I've heard since I've been a jinni!" she said, then hugged him again and whispered into his ear, "Suppose we leave out the Doodazzle and just make it Mrs. Daniel S. Dakins?"

She slipped her hand into his shirt, caressed his chest lightly and kissed him on the nape of his neck. She smelled like roasted cinnamon.

The next day, Dakins awoke to find her lying beside him, minus her veil and skirt, which lay like streams of firelight across the foot of his bed.

"I'm going to tell you what Lucifer wants from you, Danny. I don't care what happens to me anymore. I just want you to be prepared. He wants your shot."

"My shot? The Doodazzler?" He sat up in the bed. "I'll be damned if I'll give him my shot!" Then, after thinking about it a moment, he asked, "Why would Lucifer need a basketball move?"

She explained the whole thing to him: the divine game, Lucifer's role in it and why the addition of the Doodazzler to his repertoire of moves might mean the difference between victory and defeat for the forces of evil.

Dakins whistled loudly. "Well, I'll be damned."

"I wish you wouldn't keep saying that, honey," she said. "It makes me nervous."

He began chuckling deep in his throat and soon let forth a bellowing belly roar that nearly convulsed his giant body.

"Danny? Are you all right, Danny?"

"I ... I'm fine," he said, wiping the tears from his cheeks and still chuckling. "But it's funny. This whole thing's very funny. I wish you'd told me this in the first place. It wouldn't have changed anything, I suppose, except that I wouldn't have had to worry so much. I know exactly what to do now."

"What are you going to do?"

"The only thing I can do. Just answer one more question. If you could get free of Lucifer, if you could be a normal woman again and not a jinni, are you sure you would want to be married to a guy who's six-eight and is out of town a lot?"

"Only if he took me out of town with him sometimes."

"You got a deal," said Dakins.

•

They still talk of it in heaven and they probably always will, the day Danny Dakins played Lucifer a game of 21, one on one for his soul, his woman and his shot. As the story is told, Lucifer appeared to Dakins and Yvonne promptly at midnight on the tenth day. Dakins challenged him to the match and Lucifer accepted. They played it on a nearby high school basketball court that Lucifer conveniently clothed in a shroud of invisibility until the game was over. Dakins put up a tremendous battle, blocking Lucifer's shots, stealing the ball from him and snatching rebounds from him with nearly the same grace as the angel Gabriel. But Lucifer played just as fiercely. He astonished Dakins repeatedly by transforming himself into the replicas of the various basketball stars whose souls he had absorbed. Dakins, unnerved by having to play against an entire host of his former idols, missed two consecutive shots, allowing Lucifer to get a basket up on him. They traded baskets until the score was 20-19, and Dakins put on a brilliant display of defense, but Lucifer summoned up all the skills within him for his final assault on the basket, and although Dakins blocked three consecutive shots, the fourth time Lucifer leaped to shoot, Dakins was suddenly felled by a violent cramp in his left leg. The ball went through the hoop, and Lucifer immediately claimed both Dakins' soul and his shot, as well as the soul of Yvonne.

But, as the angels recount it, the Lord, having looked upon the game with interest, having been moved to compassion by the nearly superhuman effort of Dakins and knowing that Lucifer had cheated Dakins at the last moment by crippling him, decreed that the bet was only temporarily won; that the eternal disposition of Dakins' soul would, like that of all other souls, be decided by a free throw in the eternal divine game. Lucifer readily agreed to this, as he had no doubt that he would sink it.

And so Dakins and Yvonne were transported to heaven, where they sat in the bleachers with the heavenly host to watch Lucifer shoot a free throw for Dakins' soul.

But first, Lucifer had to show off his newly gained acquisition, the Doodazzler. For he had temporarily absorbed Dakins' basketball skills upon winning the game of 21. Grinning malevolently, he shouted to the heavens that the tide was about to turn; that he, Lucifer, now held the weapon he needed to defeat God's team: the Doodazzler.

Then, in a flawless imitation of Dakins, he dribbled the length of the court, leaped into the air with his arms outspread and, holding the ball in his right hand, faked a shot, switched the ball behind his back to his left hand, double pumped while swiveling his body 180 degrees to the left, tossed the ball from his left hand to his right and lofted a high-arching hook shot that barely touched the net.

The heavenly host was silent. The angels frowned. The demons in hell began applauding wildly, sending plumes of brimstone and smoke into the celestial sphere in celebration.

And the angels tell of how Dakins hung his head when he realized what his secret weapon had become in the hands of pure evil.

They tell of how.Lucifer finally stepped to the free-throw line to seal Dakins' fate and forever own the Doodazzler, and how the heavenly host held its breath as he bounced the luminous globe containing the face of Danny Dakins three times. They remember how Lucifer's eyes glinted and how wicked was his laugh as he aimed at the basket.

And even today, the angels tell of how Lucifer released the ball and how it rolled around the basket three times and then fell out.

And they laugh and sing divine songs about how Lucifer cursed the heavens and exploded in a black cloud of acrid smoke, while Dakins and Yvonne were immediately transported back to earth, where Yvonne became a normal woman and married Dakins the next day.

And when the angels finish telling this marvelous tale, they rejoice in the infinite wisdom of the Lord. For He had seen fit to equip Danny Dakins with every essential basketball skill except one, which was shooting free throws. Dakins was, in fact, the worst free-throw shooter in the history of basketball, a fact Lucifer would have known if he'd done better research. At any rate, Lucifer had absorbed not only Dakins' skills but his one stupendous deficit as well. And it cost him not only two souls but the greatest shot of all time.

•

Danny Dakins' playing career lasted another 14 years, but from that day on, he was a different player. He permanently retired the Doodazzler; it was never seen again. He became much better defensively, a better team player and much less of a loner. He and Yvonne had two children, bought a house in Chatham and had the happiest of marriages. The one mark on his otherwise sterling career was that he never was able to shoot free throws worth a damn. A newspaper reporter once asked him how, with his otherwise complete mastery of the game, he could be so abysmal at this one fundamental art.

Dakins merely smiled and replied, "Beats the Devil out of me."

"He'd just spearheaded the Bulls to their 16th consecutive win, leading both teams in scoring."