Chapter 7: Pickleball With the Chairman

Harold Rainsford played pickleball and expected the ball to know it.

I showed up at eight on Saturday in sneakers from a thrift store in Silver Lake and a paddle I'd borrowed from my neighbor.

He looked at the paddle.

"That's a beginner's paddle," he said.

"I am a beginner."

"Good. I like beating beginners."

He beat me eleven to two.

I got my two points off a lucky dink, which I'm told is the technical term, and he took a long drink of water and called it beginner's luck.

The second game went eleven to six.

By the third I had figured out that he hated anything slow and low, so I gave him slow and low.

He chased every ball and grunted at every miss.

I lost nine to eleven, but it was a good loss.

He leaned on the net, breathing hard, grinning.

"You hustle," he said. "I like a hustler."

"I'm not hustling."

"You made me run for forty minutes."

"You ran. I stood in one place."

"That's what I'm saying."

We sat on a bench by the courts with two paper cups of coffee that Harold's assistant had brought on a tray.

He put his cup on his knee.

"My son tells me you aren't after his money," he said.

"I'm not."

"My wife tells me you're the most expensive woman in Los Angeles."

"Your wife has never seen my receipts."

"I have." He took an envelope from his bag. "I framed one. It's in my office now."

I took a sip of coffee.

"Why would you frame a receipt?"

"My accountants flagged it as fraud. Then they called the store, and the store said you'd simply asked."

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