The Lock Up Book

Stu Lapine doesn't like to read, but he did write a book. It is a simple document with names, places, dates and numbers. One of the names in Stu Lapine's book is Marty Rose. It has been 20 years since Lapine wrote Rose's name, but it is still there.

Lapine and Rose grew up on the same block on Brooklyn's Bushwick Avenue. They were basketball players. Stu Lapine still is. The Lapines are the only family left from the old (continued on page 142)LockUp Book(continued from page 100) neighborhood for 20 blocks in any direction. The air is filled with rap and reggae music now, and the delicatessen on the corner is a chicken-and-rice shop bathed in the scent of curry.

Marty Rose left the neighborhood for Harvard 20 years ago and never went back. He excelled at everything. He went to Wharton business school, entered the banking business and rose to the top so fast you would think he had a weather balloon tied to his finger.

While Marty Rose was negotiating his way through college, shifting his way to class through the hippies in Harvard Square, Stu Lapine was listening hard for noises above, watching carefully where he placed each step in the central highlands of Vietnam. He wasn't a hero, but he stayed alive and came home with a good reputation with people he met. After Vietnam, he moved back into the same house he'd grown up in. Simple. Everything about Stu Lapine is simple. He took a job at the transit-authority garage in Queens and works there still.

Marty Rose changed homes. He changed jobs and friends, and he quietly changed his wife. But there was one thing he could never change, and that is where we come to Stu Lapine's book. Marty Rose was a basketball player of reputation. Lapine was a ballplayer, too, but Rose was a name. He was a captain of the Boys' High team that went to the city finals and lost to Erasmus in '63. A supersweet six-foot guard, they called him The Shooter, a name he still uses for himself sometimes. He had a monster first step and could sweep to the basket, reach away with his long arm and flip the ball off the glass with his left hand. He could jam to a stop and stick the jump shot with good range. Rose was better than good. He was gifted. But he thought he was even better than that, and the years hadn't changed him. He tells stories now to house guests about the old days in Brooklyn. They are great stories, part of the legend of Marty Rose--the legend kept alive by Rose himself.

Lapine had a kind of reputation, too. Thick-legged and slow of foot, he was just an average high school player, but he had the fastest hands in Brooklyn. And in a half-court game, he may have been the best defensive guard in the city. He silenced so many scorers, locked up so many hot-shots, they started calling him The Sheriff in the schoolyards. And that was how he got the idea for his book. In it he wrote the name of every top player whom he had held far below his usual output in a half-court game.

He had standards. The player had to be a bona fide star. It had to be a 21-point game. Lapine's team had to win. If it was three on three, he had to hold his man under five points. If it was two on two, six points; and if it was one on one, he had to keep the man from scoring ten points. He carried his book all over the city, seeking out the best backcourt players in New York, the high school and college heroes and the underground legends. When he locked them up, he wrote their names in the book. He studied scorers the way some people watch birds, and he collected their names in his book. He called it the lockup book, and somewhere near the middle was written the name Marty Rose. Beneath the name it read, wingate high school park, April 26, 1962, 3 ON 3, 21-14, rose! point.

Rose has been on the fast track for 20 years, but he remembers Lapine's book and his name. It is a mark on his stainless reputation. It recalls one of the few incidents in his life he couldn't point to with pride, and the thought of it still irks him.

•

It is difficult to describe the way Lapine played defense. It had a lot to do with changing rhythms. Take the Chenier game. Inside the billfold-sized green ledger, the entry reads, junior high school 57 park, 2 ON 2, 21-12, Pablo chenier--4 points. To get that name in his book, Lapine had traveled to Bedford-Stuyvesant and waited all afternoon in a candy store for the weather to clear. Pablo chenier was known as The Truth on the Brooklyn playgrounds. A 6'2" whippet, he had played for Tulsa in college and had been the last man cut by the Pistons in the N.B.A. two years in a row. He was perhaps a shade too frail for the pros, but he had reflexes from another world. People used to come from all over the city to see him put his elbows over the rim. Lapine didn't look much like a ballplayer, and when his game came up, the crowd began to drift away. Pablo tossed the ball into play. Lapine thought it only fair to announce to his opponent, "I play one game and one game only."

"So what?" Pablo said.

Pablo scored the first four points of the game easily, and Lapine asked to guard him. At first, Lapine played soft. Pablo was sure he had a lemon and nonchalantly went about squeezing it. He drove at the retreating Lapine and rose to the rim. He soared into the air almost a foot over the basket, but he didn't have the ball. Lapine had slapped it away at waist level, retrieved it and fed his teammate for a lay-up almost before Pablo had landed. On the next play, Pablo turned his back, but Lapine knew the move so well he got a piece of the jump shot as pablo spun. As the locals started returning to the fence, Pablo sliced off a pick and Lapine stole the ball cleanly. When he got the ball back, pablo waved his teammate to the other side of the court. Clear-out. He turned his back and tried to work Lapine low. Pablo spun left and right but could get only a couple of inches closer to the basket each time.

On the next-to-last play of the game, Pablo drove around Lapine, but Stuslapped his dribble away and snatched the loose ball. Lapine faced Pablo outside and faked the jumper. Eager to make a spectacular play, Chenier rose for the fake like a jack-in-the-box. Lapine waited, using Pablo's leaping ability against him, took a short dribble to the right and carefully buried the jump shot.

Pablo took off his sweat shirt for another game as Lapine put his on.

"Run it back," Pablo demanded.

Lapine looked at him. "I play one game," he said. "I told you that." Then he took out his book and wrote down the facts.

Pablo was livid. "Punk!" he shrieked. "Run it back, punk!" Then he checked himself as his faithful turned away. It was all right to get burned once every few years, but it wasn't all right to lose your cool over it.

•

It is hard to find guys who know about those days in Brooklyn. Almost everybody who played or followed the schoolyard game is gone. There is a new Boys' High. The students from Erasmus and Midwood are engineers and lawyers living in Los Angeles. The street guys are spread out or just gone. You can't tell the way it really was by looking in old newspapers or some high school recordbooks, and the stories have almost all faded away. That is why when marty Rose ran into Stu Lapine on the I.R.T. platform at Clark Street, he was happy to see him. Rose was headed to work from the town house he kept in Brooklyn Heights. Lapine was on his way home from the night shift.

Rose wore a softly cut Italian suit, and he carried The Wall Street Journal under his arm. The number-two train pulled in crammed with people, so he stepped back and waited for the next one. Stu Lapine's train arriving from Manhattan went out of service, and Lapine swung onto the steamy platform, grumbling at the delay. The frown on his face turned to a glowing smile when he saw Marty Rose. Marty was tan and trim, and Stu liked to see that, too. Marty had a big smile and his firmest handshake for Stu.

"You look great, Marty," Stu said. "You must be playin' ball."

"No, Stu, tennis. I play tennis now. You ever play? You might be good."

Stu laughed. "Tennis? You really play tennis?"

Marty nodded.

"Tennis is for the guys from the suburbs, Marty."

Marty Rose smiled. "You never change. You still with the. . . transit?"

"Yeah, Marty."

Marty Rose stepped toward the track and looked into the tunnel for the next train. He turned back to Stu and shook his head. "Stu Lapine, Jesus Christ, Stu Lapine."

Stu smiled amiably and said, "I read your name the other day."

Marty reacted with practiced humility. "Oh, yeah. In the Times. I talk to the guy for five seconds on the telephone and he writes half a page. It's all bull."

Lapine shook his head slowly. "No, it wasn't in the Times."

Rose thought for a moment. "Oh, you mean a couple of months ago, the bio in the Journal."

Even before the smile crept into the corners of Lapine's mouth, Marty sensed a trap. He was one of the best at avoiding traps, but this one was 20 years old. "You don't read the Journal" Rose said, searching. In a moment, he knew. "That's right. You don't read at all," he snapped, angry at himself for not catching it sooner.

"No, I don't read books, Rosey, I write them. In fact, I read your name in my book the other day."

Rose scowled. He had moved with the speed of light through the banking world, and he had jettisoned everything he didn't need. But there was one thing he would not leave behind, and that was his basketball reputation. It was his very first possession, and he took very good care of it. But Lapine cared, too. He cared so much he carried his book with him every day of his life in his pants pocket.

Rose looked down the track and back to Lapine. "You know I don't belong in that book. The day you put my name into it, you were dreaming. Besides, Lapine, it's ancient history. You live in the past."

"Where do you live, Rosey, in connecticut?" Lapine laughed his easy laugh. "Don't be mad, Marty. A lot of guys got mad. But I thought you'd accept it by now. Don't be pissed. It doesn't become you." Lapine smiled serenely. "Listen, Marty, I'm gonna walk over to High Street and catch the A." He walked a few steps, stopped, turned and said one word.

"Tennis?" And walked away.

Marty Rose didn't get where he was by being a nice guy. He was known as a guy who would make the tough decisions, a brush-back pitcher in a hardball league. He said to Lapine's back, "You still play ball or do you just talk?"

Lapine turned. "No, I still play almost every day. I'm still puttin' guys in my book, believe it or not. The way I look at it, it's an honor to get in my book. You're probably in better company there than you were in the Ivy League."

Rose's eyes swept Lapine quickly and held on his sneakers. Lapine stood there, a 40-year-old man with dashes of gray in his hair, wearing well-worn state-of-the-art high-top basketball shoes that cost $100 a pair. Rose made a proposition. "Listen, I belong to the Downtown Athletic Club. They've got a gym and they're open. I'll play you one on one right now. If I win, take my name out of the book."

"You know the rules, Marty: Nobody comes out of my book. They only go in."

The big cat in Rose was up and pacing. He was past the point of return. "Let me see that book. I know you've got it with you."

The train to Manhattan streamed into the station and out as Rose examined the pocket-sized leather lockup book. It was an amazing document for its simplicity and the memories it recalled. Rose looked at each name, and then he looked at Lapine, who stood politely by. Rose read another name and looked up skeptically.

"Ivan Pichinsky? You have Ivan Pichinsky in here?"

It was Lapine's turn for humility. "Yeah, Ivan the Terrible. He's six-ten, but he was so terrible I figured I'd have a shot at it and, well . . . There he is. Tallest guy in the book. You want to see your name, Rosey?"

"No, I know what you wrote." Rose handed the book back to Lapine.

Rose was humming with the urge to go back to those days, to light somebody up, blow by him to the basket. He was burning, and there was The Sheriff standing in front of him, smiling. "Lapine, one on one right now. I'll show you that book is a dream."

•

The sign-in book at the Downtown Athletic Club reads, Marty Rose-member; stulapine-guest. Time:9:30 am. Lapine turned down the offer of gym clothes and chatted with the locker-room attendant while Rose changed. "I know the guy from the Rockaways," Lapine explained. "He used to rent beach chairs out there."

In the sun-streaked gym, Lapine threw up shots in his T-shirt and work pants while rose did stretching exercises on the floor, clad in glowing-white tennis gear. Then Rose turned and gestured for the ball. He worked methodically, tossing up soft jump shots from around the key, following his misses with floating drives.

Lapine fed him a bounce pass. "Hey, Rosey, you can still hop."

Rose passed the ball back. "Cut the bull, Lapine. Hit or miss for the ball. Wait a second. Let's do this right. You know I don't belong in that book. I was at half speed. Anyway, I'll bet you a thousand dollars against that book of yours."

Lapine caught the bouncing ball and held it on his hip. He didn't really dislike Marty. Of course he didn't like his tampering with the facts, but he had a soft spot in his heart for any ballplayer. Then again, Stu Lapine knew a bad deal when he heard one. "Marty, that book took a long time to put together. I don't feature it floating in the Hudson. You know what I mean? 'Cause I'm positive that's what you'd do with it if you get lucky and beat me. Besides, I know how long it takes you to make a grand. About an hour." Lapine thought for a moment and then made his own proposition. "Marty, my niece wants to go to a fancy art school in Rhode Island. She's a good kid. I'll play the book against a year's tuition. Even up."

Rose's eyes narrowed. "That's real money you're talking about."

"Well, it's a real book," Lapine countered. "Besides, I'm not a total fool, Marty; it'd be a gift. That's deductible. In your tax bracket, it'd probably only cost you a grand anyway."

Rose nodded acceptance. "Hit or miss," he said.

Lapine threw up a jump shot that rattled off the back rim. "Your ball, Marty," he said. "Everything but an air ball goes behind the foul line."

Rose took the ball and Lapine established a defensive position up under him, forcing him to turn his back to dribble the ball. Lapine shaded Rose's left, forcing him right. In his college days, Rose would have ten points before his defender started looking for his left hand. Rose went hard to his right, exposing Lapine's lack of speed. He gained half a step and pulled up for a 15-foot jumper that spun around and out. Lapine judged the angle of the rebound perfectly, gathered the ball, stepped behind the foul line and tossed up his own 15-footer before Rose was close enough to bother the shot. The high-arching shot nestled softly into the net and hung there for a moment before Rose snatched it and bounced it hard on the floor several times while he composed himself. He had already made two mistakes. First, he should have gone all the way to the basket on his drive. Second, he had relaxed on the rebound.

On offense, Lapine turned his back at the foul line. He jerked his shoulder to the left and spun to the right, tossing in a fadeaway jump shot without dribbling. The next time, he went right back to the foul line, faked to the left, faked the fadeaway spinning right and stepped under Rose's defensive lunge for a bank shot from straightaway.

Rose snorted disdainfully at the shot as he flipped the ball back to Lapine. Stu testified in his own defense. "If I'm inside the foul line, I bank them from out front now. It's new." Lapine missed a jump shot going hard to his right, and Rose scooped up the ball at the foul line. He waited for Lapine to recover and drove right by him. Rising to the hoop, he brought the ball up away from his body to avoid Lapine's hands down low. Rose scored the next five points on drives. When Lapine backed up a step, he hit two jump shots. Then he missed. Lapine took over. He worked slowly, carefully, backing his way just inside the foul line and then either fading away or stepping by Rose. It wasn't a move for a full-court game, but half court, one on one, the rhythm was impossible to follow.

It was 15 to 15 when Rose got the ball. Lapine stayed low on defense, forcing Rose to hold the ball high over his head or turn his back. With his back turned, Rose tried to rest but couldn't. He had to pivot and move the ball constantly away from the badgering thrusts of Lapine's hands. Rose was going by Lapine every time, but, like a boxer, he was getting arm-weary.

At 18 to 18, Rose drove again. His lay-up fell short, but Lapine had touched his wrist. Rose called the foul.

"Good call," Lapine said, tossing him the ball behind the foul line.

"I know it was a good call," Rose snapped. "Don't start that sportsmanship crap with me, Lapine."

Rose beat Lapine with a change-of-pace drive to the right this time, but Lapine smacked the ball off his leg and out of bounds as Rose swept by. Lapine took the ball and went right to the foul line the way some people go to the refrigerator. He faded away for 19 to 18. Back at the foul line, he faked and stepped under. The bank shot was too hard off the glass, and Rose had his last chance.

Rose dribbled the ball low, his left hand far away from his body, and watched Lapine's hands. Lapine stabbed for the ball, from the right this time. Rose cupped the dribble, spun left and went all the way to the basket. It might have been a carry, but Lapine was silent. Nineteen to 19. Rose spun the same way. Lapine cut off his angle to the basket. Rose jammed to a stop with a screech of rubber in the empty gym. He rose for the jump shot, but Lapine's hand flashed at waist level and tipped the ball. Rose fought for the handle on the way up and pushed the shot off the palm of his hand. It went in. Point game. Rose went left. Lapine overplayed him that way, forcing him deep into the corner. Rose was tired. He turned his back and threw up a prayer. The shot dusted the top corner of the backboard and went in as Lapine angled for the rebound that didn't come.

Lapine walked straight off the court and down to the locker room. Rose sat on a chair and waited.

Downstairs, Carl, the attendant, opened the guest locker for Lapine. "Never thought I'd see you around here, Stu," he said. "Leavin' so fast? You ought to stick around for a while. Contacts. A lot of these guys can do you some good. If I could play ball like you, I'd probably be a partner in one of these firms by now."

Lapine dried himself slowly, took the shiny green ledger from the locker and held it in his hand. Carl, happy to see someone from Brooklyn among the trim executives, hovered close by. "Stu, why don't you use the sauna? Take a swim in the pool."

"No, thanks, Carl." Lapine stood for a moment with his shirt off in front of the huge fan by the door. As he stood there thinking, he reached mechanically into his pocket for his wallet. Carl spotted the move and waved the tip away before it was offered. "Forget it." Then he leaned to Lapine's ear and whispered. "I used to do better with the beach chairs. These guys don't know how to act. Any time, Stu. Just ask for me."

Upstairs, Marty Rose waited. Lapine walked across the gym, handed the book to Rose and nodded. Rose, the most practiced of winners, took the book and nodded back. Without a word, Lapine walked out into the heat and headed for the subway to Brooklyn.

•

Rose showered quickly and headed for his office, a block away. At his desk, he reached for the pile of messages clipped neatly to his schedule for the day and for the week. He hesitated, reached inside his jacket and removed the book. The worn leather and the tiny print summoned a flood of images. He read, Marshall townshend housing project. Lapine had stopped somebody named Sonny Wright. Townshend--The Pit, they called it, because it was surrounded on three sides by towering city housing. Rose saw himself there, a 15-year-old with arms down to his knees. He went back to that sharp, gray afternoon when he first knew he could take anybody. He flew past the guards and dueled the big men around the rim. The locals hammered him on every shot and he scored the last basket of the game tumbling to the cement. On his back, he heard the curses that meant the ball had gone in and lay there smiling at the smoky fall sky.

Rose reached for his console and pushed a button. "Bonnie, I want you to get the number of a Stu Lapine, probably on Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn. Call him and tell him to come by and pick up his book."

"His book, Mr. Rose?"

"Yes, Bonnie. I'll leave it with you. Ask him to come and get his lockup book and tell him it's unabridged. He'll understand. I want you to keep trying till you reach him. It's important."

"Rose was better than good. He was gifted. But he thought he was even better than that."