Half Court Press

by A. J. Stewart

  “You have better things to do than protect people?”

  Crozier snarled but he said nothing.

  “There’s been a third threat.”

  “What?”

  I put my hand out for my phone. “May I?”

  Crozier hesitated and then handed it back to me. I found the photo of the text message and handed it back.

  He frowned at it. “The father again,” he said to himself. “And she got this on her phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “I saw it this morning, but she got it last night.”

  He clenched his jaw again. “She has to bring this stuff to me.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to waste your time.”

  “Where’s the phone?”

  “She has it.”

  He looked at me again. It wasn’t going to be the start of a beautiful friendship.

  “You didn’t bring it to me?”

  “No point.”

  “No point? Really, Mr. Gumshoe?”

  “No. She doesn’t have the message anymore.”

  He clenched his jaw further. He was going to grind his teeth into powder if he wasn’t careful.

  “She destroyed evidence?”

  “No. It was SneakyChat.”

  I said that like I was a long time power user of the app, like I was the college roommate of the kid who had come up with it, like I was going to win big when the whole thing listed on the stock exchange.

  Crozier did the clenching thing and then looked at Ronzoni. In other circumstances, one might have called what they had a moment, but here in the interview room it was more like shared professional distaste.

  “SneakyChat,” he said to himself.

  “I understand you can’t trace it,” I said.

  “No. And even if we could get the details from the server, the damned company won’t share data without a court order, which they’ll contest and we’ll all end up in the Supreme Court, and by then the servers will have been deleted or we’ll be denied by the court.”

  He had worked himself up into quite a state, and he ended up facing me with real menace in his eyes, as if all this was somehow my fault.

  “I’m going to impound this phone,” he said.

  “You’re what?”

  “You heard me, smart guy.”

  I took half a breath and thought about Danielle. Most of the folks I had met at the sheriff’s office were hardworking people who truly did what they did to help people and uphold the law. But there were also plenty of jackasses, as there were in any large organization, and I had always tried to bite my tongue when Danielle had been a deputy here, more for her sake than mine. She had to work with these people. But now she didn’t. Now I had to hold my tongue with a whole other group of people, who, fortunately for all of us, I didn’t run into nearly as often. So this bozo was fair game.

  “I tell you what, you take my phone. You take it to your office and put your fingerprints all over it, while I walk down to the county courthouse and file a lawsuit against you and the sheriff’s office for illegal search and seizure. And then I’ll drive over to Gun Club Road and explain to the sheriff himself—he’s a personal friend, you know—how you took private property that has no relation to the case and no evidence on it.”

  “It does have evidence, smart guy.”

  “Oh, you mean photos of actual evidence that you should have collected but didn’t? What do they call that in the handbook? Dereliction of duty, or just plain sloppy police work?”

  “I didn’t know about it,” he snarled.

  “Because you failed to interview everyone, because you don’t give a damn, because you don’t think the people in Riviera Beach are worthy of your effort.” I pointed at Ronzoni. “He looks after the money in Palm Beach. You’re supposed to look after the rest of us.”

  “If you think you can derail my investigation, I’ll have you in a cell—”

  “No, genius. If you interfere with my case, with me protecting Tania and her family, I’ll have a sit-down with the Palm Beach Post about how you didn’t do your job in a black community.”

  “That’s crap!”

  “Doesn’t look like crap. It looks like a consistent narrative.”

  “Get out of my station house.”

  I put my hand out for my phone, and he slapped it into my palm.

  “And it’s not your station house. I’m a taxpayer in this county. It’s my damned station house.”

  I stormed out, and I heard Ronzoni say he’d keep in touch with Crozier. I figured Ronzoni did have to work with the guy. Me, I was done with him. I could take it if he was just getting nowhere with his investigation. That happened. The clues didn’t link, you lost momentum. But this dude was asleep at the wheel.

  Ronzoni caught up with me on the street.

  “That went well,” he said.

  “And I thought you were a pain in the backside.”

  “He’s not a fan.”

  “I’m not a fan of his. Still, we did what we had to do. We let him know, so I’m not obstructing justice and you’re not interfering off your patch.”

  “Email me the photos,” he said. “I’ll forward them to him.”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll email them to him.”

  “Your email could be used as evidence, so don’t go crazy.”

  “I won’t do it until I cool down, and I’ll be all official-like.”

  We walked back to the parking lot and stood by Ronzoni’s ride.

  “What are you going to do now?” he asked.

  “There’s something missing,” I said.

  “What?”

  “There are threats, demands for money, but we’re three threats into this thing and there are no instructions on how to deliver the cash.”

  Ronzoni nodded. “That is strange.”

  “So there’s no link to the perp. We can’t follow him or her to a drop, because there is no drop.”

  “So?”

  “So I’ll follow the only thread I have. The money.”

  “But there is no money—not that kind of money anyhow. We’ve established that.”

  “Exactly. So either the money is real and we haven’t seen it yet, or it’s not real and someone knows that. Either way, I want to talk to the person closest to it, real or imagined.”

  I told Ronzoni I’d keep him in the loop and promised again to email the photos to Crozier. Then Ronzoni drove away. For a moment I looked up at the building that housed my office and was about to go up when my phone rang.

  “Hey, you,” I said.

  “Hey, you,” said Danielle. “I’m sorry about the other night. It got crazy.”

  “It happens.”

  “I know.”

  “A lot.”

  “Yeah, I know, but I’ve got the night off, and tomorrow morning. I was thinking about coming up to West Palm.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No,” I repeated. “I’ll come to Miami. I need to see a man about a dog.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The midday traffic on I-95 was mercifully light, and I made good time. I parked in a public lot in Brickell and walked along the bustling streets to the building I was searching for. I didn’t look the part. I had thrown on khaki shorts after getting Tania’s call that morning, and this was that rare part of Florida where shorts were not really the done thing. Instead, there were classic-cut suits and ties and a whole lot of hair gel.

  There was a metal detector in the lobby, which suggested there were plenty of lawyers in the building, and I put my keys through and then ignored the looks of the security guy behind the big reception desk and got in the elevator. I had scoped out the tenant board, so I punched the button and then stood back to allow the impressively dressed and fabulous-smelling folks to get on board.

  Bannerman Associates was one of the biggest sports agencies in the world. They represented major winning golfers, Cy Young Award-winning pitchers, Pro Bowl footballers, and a go
od chunk of the NBA All-Stars. And their walls showed that off and then some.

  A lobby like the Four Seasons led to a reception desk staffed by four people. I felt like I should have brought a suitcase. Floor-to-ceiling windows offered killer views of Biscayne Bay. There were people sitting in plush chairs in the lobby like they were waiting for important meetings.

  I wandered up to the reception. The young woman behind the desk was chatting on a headset with a joyful attitude that one rarely saw outside of Disney World. I waited and she smiled at me like she was just dying to chat with me. It was impressive. I looked like a retired pro surfer. I no longer had leaves in my blond hair but it was as messy as it had been at the day’s break, and my flamingo-clad shirt and khaki shorts suggested I had better have won a half dozen world surfing championships if I thought I had any business being there.

  “How can I help?” The reception girl glowed.

  I told her who I wanted and she asked if I had an appointment and I said no, but it was regarding his new number one draft pick. This seemed to impress her, but that might have been part of her shtick. She made a call seemingly without hitting any buttons, as if her headset had a telepathy function, and after a short conversation that I couldn’t hear despite her being three feet away, she smiled at me again.

  “Please take a seat, he’ll be right up,” she said. “Can I offer you a Gatorade?”

  “No, I’m good,” I said. “But thanks.”

  I didn’t take a seat. Instead, I wandered the perimeter of the lobby like a critic might peruse an art exhibit. The walls were covered in photos of athletes: in mid-action on the field; holding up a trophy or a big check; holding up a jersey on draft day. There were snapshots from commercials they had appeared in, holding aloft products they had been paid a pretty penny to touch.

  “Jones,” said a voice behind me.

  I turned and found Mark Kressic. He was in a gray jacket that had a slick sheen, and he wore a pink shirt with a matching pocket square. There was a tuft of hair on his chest where the shirt parted.

  “Kressic,” I said.

  He looked me up and down with none of the receptionist’s joy. He knew for a fact I wasn’t a world champion surfer.

  Kressic glanced around the lobby like a high school jock who was getting his homework done by the school nerd, and who wasn’t easy about their relationship being made public.

  “Come to my office,” he said.

  We headed back to the elevator and went down a floor. The view was still impressive but the lobby was not. This was a working floor, not a showcase. There were still photos of athletes everywhere, but the glitz of the reception floor was replaced by cubicles and fishbowl offices.

  Kressic’s office was the agent equivalent of the janitor’s closet. A king-size mattress would have taken up the entire floor. There were no windows and the potted plant in the corner looked like it had scurvy. Clearly the WNBA was not at the pointy end of the agent business.

  I knew the feeling. I had met a few agents during my playing days. Most of them came sniffing around the college football team, looking for the guys who were going to make the next step. For some guys it was a big step, in play and in cash. In baseball there were fewer agents around, and most of those were waiting for the handful of wunderkinds who might make it straight into the big leagues. But most college kids went into the minors, like me, and made about a thousand bucks a month, sleeping in apartments with six other guys just to make rent, and being hauled across the country in buses that Greyhound had discarded decades before. Waiters at Cracker Barrel made more in tips. So there were few agents in the minors.

  But there were some, always looking for that big signing, that guy having a breakout year who might crack the code and get picked up by a major league affiliate. I was almost such a guy. I got called up by the Oakland A’s for a month at the end of my fourth season, making league minimum. A few agents came by for a chat. Some even made promises they couldn’t keep. One or two were straight with me: I get picked up by the organization for the following season, then we would have reason to talk.

  I didn’t get picked up by the organization the following season.

  Instead, I got traded to the Mets, who sent me to Port St. Lucie, Florida, and the rest, fortunately, was my history.

  I looked around the office at the usual pics of the agent with his athletes. I didn’t recognize any of the faces, except for shot after shot of Mark Kressic’s tanned hide. He sat, and although he didn’t invite me to do so, I followed his cue.

  “So how does an agent getting 3 percent make a living when his star player earns only fifty thousand a year?”

  “How does Publix make money when lettuce costs a buck?”

  “You get your lettuce for a buck?”

  “Not the point.”

  “I don’t know, how?”

  “Volume, that’s how. This ain’t Jerry Maguire. I don’t have one guy to hang my livelihood on. I have a book, a roster.”

  “Sure.”

  “You said you played pro?”

  “Baseball, bus leagues, mostly.”

  “So you didn’t have an agent.”

  “No.”

  “But you know how it works.”

  “Sure. You hustle, just like the players, and just like the players, you hope you get your breakout client.”

  “I don’t plan on being down here forever.”

  He smiled, and again I noticed the wrinkles around his eyes that contrasted with the unnatural smoothness of his forehead. He was trying very hard to look young, but he was no spring chicken, even allowing for the tan. As I sat there looking at him, I was reminded of the old journeymen I’d played with in the minors. Guys who had been around forever, timeless warriors who still dreamed of a major league at-bat years after their shot had passed them by. Some got kept around to mentor rookies, and others moved into coaching, but most of them eventually found their seat on the bus taken by a younger man, and they wandered off into the sunset with their jacket over their shoulder and barely a dime in their pocket.

  “Tania got another threat,” I said.

  Kressic frowned, or at least the lines around his eyes certainly turned from upward to downward.

  “What happened?”

  “She got a text. Another threat to her dad.”

  “Did you take it to the police?”

  “Of course.”

  “What do they think? Can they trace it?”

  “They don’t think so.”

  “Damn.”

  “So, now her dad is mentioned in two of the threats.”

  “Is he?”

  “The letter and the text.”

  “Right.”

  “What do you know about his business?”

  Kressic leaned back in his chair. “Draymond? Not much. I deal mainly with Camille, you know.”

  “Yeah, I get that.”

  “I think Draymond is into restaurants or something? I heard he had some financial issues.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Camille mentioned it.”

  I stood and wandered over to a picture of a young guy in a sports uniform.

  “Lacrosse?” I asked.

  Kressic nodded. “You know it?”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen a game or two. So what do you think about Camille?”

  “She’s okay. I mean, she comes across all hard, but there’s lots of parents like that in this game.”

  I nodded and looked at another picture of a girl in a soccer uniform.

  “So how much do these kids make in the end?”

  “Those? Not much. There’s maybe one or two who do in the hundreds of thousands, with endorsements and such. But the rest do it more because it beats working at Walmart.”

  “That it does. Say, what happened with your Chinese guy?”

  “Chinese—oh, the GM? He’s interested.”

  “So?”

  “So, Tania needs to commit, and soon. They won’t wait beyond th
is week.”

  “Will she?”

  Kressic shrugged. “I have no idea. Sometimes I think the kid doesn’t want any kind of career at all.”

  “Must be annoying.”

  “I can do the deal but I can’t make her sign.”

  “That must cost you.”

  “Like you say, 3 percent of not much.”

  “And 6 percent because she didn’t sign last year.”

  “I can’t worry about last year. I need to focus on getting her right for a killer rookie season.”

  “And overseas?”

  Kressic paused and then steepled his fingers. “You were am athlete, you get it. There’s a finite window, you know? You want to be an accountant or a painter or hell, pretty much anything, you can do it now or you can do it later. But pro sports? It’s now or never. There is no later. You make hay while the sun shines or you don’t make it at all.”

  I nodded. He was right enough. There weren’t too many NBA careers that took off in their thirties.

  “You worried she might miss her shot?” I asked.

  “All I can say is, she had the chance to get a rookie contract overseas before she debuted in the WNBA. That practically never happens.”

  “And hasn’t again.”

  “Yeah. So we move forward. She could be a hot property, not just here but globally. You’ve seen her. She’s a nice kid and she’s got that smile, but she hasn’t maximized any of it yet.”

  “Have you seen threats like this before?” I asked, changing tack.

  “Not really, not my clients. A few old friends or cousins or whatever try to reappear and ask for this and that, but most of that stuff happens in the big sports where guys are earning millions.”

  “But they’re not asking for millions here.”

  “No. A hundred thousand dollars, is that right?”

  “Yeah. So what do you think?”

  “About what?” asked Kressic.

  “About Tania, about what she should do.”

  “About the threats?”

  “Sure.”

  “I don’t know. It’s not my area. There’s a limit to what an agent can do.”

  “There is, but what would you do?”

  “If someone were blackmailing me? I guess I’d think about paying it, or at least give the impression I could.”