Match Maker

by Alan Chin

  A gloomy shroud hung about our court, and it was hard to keep the men focused. They kept smashing the beans out of the ball to work through their disappointment. We practiced from two to five, a long and grueling workout.

  Several reporters came by, wanting the inside story on the doping charges, and Uncle Harman handled all their questions while I focused on the workout.

  When we finally quit, we had barely enough time to scurry back to the hotel and clean up before dashing across the city to meet Roy and J.D. in Chinatown.

  Even though Paris has hordes of Chinese restaurants, Chinatown is only a three-block area of Vietnamese restaurants, grocery stores, and shops. It didn’t take long to find Roy and J.D. Lambert. They were seated at the window table of the fanciest-looking restaurant in the neighborhood, and at the long table with them sat four other men dressed in fine-cut suits. They were the only Caucasians in the restaurant. As we passed the window, Roy waved us in.

  The dining room clamored with the conversations of two hundred diners using twenty different dialects and clattering plates from thirty waiters who all looked fresh off the boat from Ho Chi Minh City.

  Spencer wheeled my chair to the head of the table, and J.D. gave me a light one-two punch to the shoulder. He was in one of those happy moods that made me wonder what he knew that I didn’t.

  Roy had to shout to be heard as he made the introductions. The men in suits turned out to be two representatives from Nike, Bob Guillam and John Hackett, and two reps from Adidas, Phil Peters and Mike de Jong. We all ordered the Pho Special, a noodle soup that is a staple in Vietnamese culture.

  The suits all nervously glanced at one another, wondering, no doubt, what the hell they would be eating. I was mildly amused at their obvious display of fussiness over the unfamiliar surroundings, but before I could blink twice, they opened their briefcases and whipped out thick contracts, slapping them on the table.

  “Before we sign the contracts, I want two guarantees,” Roy said, and he held up two fingers. “First, this drug scandal with Jared disappears and Jared gets reinstated in the tournament with a public apology from the ATP. Second, Diefenbach gets the axe. I want that sleazy son of a bitch fired, tossed out on his ass without a crumb.”

  The smiles on the suits vanished.

  “Roy,” Hackett said, “be reasonable. There are some things we have no control over.”

  “You’re the money in this sport, and money controls everything. Those are my terms, and I won’t budge.”

  “I’m confident we can persuade the ATP to drop the drug charges quietly and let Jared play. That’s in everybody’s best interest,” Guillam said. “I’m willing to guarantee that.” He smiled and held out the ten-million-dollar contract to Jared.

  Before I could shout “yes,” Roy shook his head, saying, “Not enough.”

  Phil Peters spoke up. “Listen, gentlemen, even if we could persuade the powers that be to fire Diefenbach, we wouldn’t do it, because that would create a political situation between our companies and the ATP, and we can’t afford that.” He held up both hands, palms facing upward, and smiled that same kind of thin-lipped smile that Diefenbach used.

  Roy’s back visibly stiffened, and he shook his head, not budging an inch.

  Roy was the one making demands, but I knew J.D. was the one who had orchestrated whatever plan they had up their sleeve.

  J.D. Lambert spoke for the first time. “Gentlemen, I’m sure you noticed the thousands of gay protesters out front of the stadium today. What do you think will happen if someone leaks to the press that Nike and Adidas are backing the ATP on these phony charges? I think that could create a gay boycott of your products.”

  Everybody became still as J.D. continued. “We all know that gays have no influence in the world of sports or politics or manufacturing, but there is one industry that they do control: the fashion industry. Gays are the trendsetters, and what they wear, everybody wears. If we organize a gay boycott against your companies, by this time next month, every gay man and woman on the planet will be showing off their new Reeboks and Pumas, and a month after that, you won’t be able to give your shit away. You can partner with us and everybody wins, or you can lose market-share, which translates into a ten-billion-dollar loss next year.”

  The hush at the table deepened, made even more conspicuous by the constant blare of the other tables’ conversations. The suits glanced from one to the other.

  “Did I say each?” J.D. added. “I meant to say, ‘lose ten billion dollars each’.”

  The hush became deafening, but the suits weren’t convinced we had the power to create a boycott, and neither was I.

  Finally, Hackett said, “I’m sorry, we don’t respond favorably to threats. Perhaps this was a mistake.” He gathered his contracts and slipped them back into his briefcase. The Adidas executives quickly followed his example.

  My heart sank. A note of panic crossed Jared’s face.

  “Gentlemen,” Roy said, his smile suddenly looking sly, “I didn’t want to bring out the heavy artillery, but you leave me no choice. No doubt you’ve heard that two hours ago, a general strike took place in Nike’s Beijing clothing plant. What you don’t know is that by now, the same has happened in the Adidas plant in Shanghai. In fact, you can expect your entire Chinese operation will be shut down by Monday, which will halt your entire clothing manufacturing. How many millions a day will you lose?”

  “What does a plant strike have to do with signing contracts, and how the hell did you know about that? The press hasn’t picked up on it yet.”

  “I can make that problem go away,” Roy said, ignoring the question.

  “How?” Hackett asked softly, giving Roy his undivided attention.

  “Like most Chinese families, I have relatives in high places. You fuck with one Chinaman, you fuck with us all.”

  Roy began to sweat. Hackett watched him coolly, appraising him like a professional gambler across the table. Even in that noisy restaurant, I thought I could hear the nonverbal exchange passing between the suits—is Roy for real? Did he really cause the strike? How else could he have known about it so fast? Can he really shut them all down, and if so, how much will that cost? Would the Chinese government really support such tactics? How important is it to them to have Connor in the top ten? If Roy can do this, what other cards does he have up his sleeve? Or is this a huge bluff, and if so, how can we break him without risking a general strike? Most important of all: is a pawn like Diefenbach even worth taking that risk?

  Suddenly Guillam and Hackett seemed to come to a silent agreement. The other two picked up on it and nodded, but nobody spoke a word.

  The waiter danced by and deposited four plates, each holding fresh ingredients to add to the soup: bean sprouts, basil, lime wedges, and jalapeno peppers. All the suits stared at the platters, no doubt wondering if they were starter salads. To their relief, another waiter swung by with a tray holding frosted glasses of Singha beer.

  Hackett held up his glass to the table and cleared his throat. “The ATP will drop the drug charges and reinstate Jared by tomorrow morning. They’ll announce that it was an error with the testing and give Jared the public apology he deserves.”

  “And Diefenbach?” Roy growled.

  “Diefenbach is out. He’s a loose cannon that we can no longer afford. We’ll see to that detail as soon as the tournament is over, you have my word on that.”

  “Right after the trophy presentation,” Roy said. His voice was forceful but no longer a growl.

  Hackett choked on his beer, but he recovered and nodded. “You can take that to the bank.”

  A wave, no, a sea-swell of relief swept through me. I took Jared’s hand and squeezed it as hard as I could, and he leaned over and hugged me.

  “Now,” Hackett said, his face breaking into a thin smile, “can we sign the contracts before the soup gets here?”

  Jared took the contract and opened to the page with the little yellow arrows. He stared at Hackett and asked, “You�
�re sure your company doesn’t mind sponsoring a fairy?”

  Hackett shook his head. “We had a saying on the farm when I was growing up: ‘If it doesn’t scare the cows, who the hell cares?’”

  A chuckle made its way around the table. Jared bent his head, as if in prayer, and signed the contracts. As he raised his head, a smile creased his face. Connor signed his own set of contracts, and the two players glanced at each other. Jared winked. He handed the company copy of the contract back to Hackett.

  Guillam reached over and shook Jared’s hand, and mine. “How does it feel to be a multimillionaire?” he asked.

  I had never really thought that I would become rich. Tennis was never about the money, but rather, it was about doing something alongside Jared that we both loved. But in the moment that it took Jared to squiggle his signature, my future medical bills vanished, and we would never again be concerned about money. I definitely felt a rush. It wasn’t the money so much as it was that we were finally, after all the battles, getting the same perks as the other top players. We had more than arrived, we were established now, and the realization was dazzling, like the Big Bang had gone off in my head and created a new and wondrous universe. I was literally stunned.

  Through the numbness, I heard Jared say, “Like the weight of the world has been lifted off my back. Now we can afford to hire bodyguards to keep this one out of harm’s way.” He looked at me as his hand squeezed the back of my neck.

  “You should have read the fine print. That’s covered in the contract.”

  “Fine print? What fine print?” I asked, my euphoria suddenly turning to concern.

  “I mean that whenever either of you is at a tournament site, Nike will supply four armed security personnel devoted to your protection. We’re investing ten million dollars in you two, and we intend to protect our investment.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” I said, reaching for my glass.

  Connor held out his set of signed contracts, but before Peters could snatch them from his hand, Uncle Harman reached out and grabbed them.

  “Sorry,” Harman told Peters, “but I need to review the numbers before we hand these over. I’m sure everything is aboveboard, but it’s my job to ensure everything is as we agreed. It will only take me a day or two.”

  Peters shrugged his shoulders. “Take your time, but keep in mind we want to announce this new partnership before the second week of the tournament.”

  Two waiters appeared at our table with steaming bowls of soup, and we scrambled to make room for them. I glanced around the long table at our happy band, which had gone through so much together. Everyone had a triumphant smile and felt the joy of the moment except for Connor. After signing the contracts, he had become quiet, and a shadow of disappointment veiled his face.

  I was certain that Connor’s sudden dark mood stemmed from losing his dream of becoming a doctor, because signing those contracts had flushed those dreams down the toilet, and he was visibly grieving his loss. That was the first time I knew for sure that he really preferred medicine to tennis and that he signed the contracts because he simply couldn’t disappoint his father. I felt sorry for him, but now there was no turning back. Grandfather Lin had been right, and deep in the back of my mind, I heard him whisper, “I told you so.”

  Chapter 31

  ON THE first morning of play, a Monday, the gay fans began to gather at the gates of Roland Garros in the gray predawn. There wasn’t a vacant parking place for a six-kilometer radius. They came from France, England, Italy, Sweden, Germany, and Spain; virtually every European nation had representatives among the gay fans. Even hundreds of gay Americans had made the trip over to the ancient side of the Atlantic. Street hawkers sold tickets at ten times their normal price, and they had no tickets left at ten o’clock when the gates flew open and thousands and thousands of resplendent fans surged into the complex. The media coverage over Jared’s drug scandal had been a call to arms. The gays came in record numbers, and they made it clear that they had come to cheer Jared and Connor. The organizers were stunned and overjoyed to cash in on this new gold mine.

  We began our morning practice session at eight thirty, so only a few dozen people, mostly other coaches scouting us, were on hand to watch us work out, but when Jared stepped onto Court Suzanne Lenglen for his match, the stadium was filled to capacity. I scanned the crowd, and even though I had two armed security men behind me, following my every move, I was still nervous. In a world of religion-bred hatred, you never knew. It turned out that my bodyguards, Bruno and Gunther, were not only both German, they were also both gay. Nike was taking every precaution to keep their investment safe.

  Jared wore white with his signature red-striped war paint on his cheeks, and as soon as he appeared on court, a multitude of frenzied fans, also wearing red-striped war paint, leaped to their feet and cheered, blowing horns and noisemakers. I expected fireworks to burst overhead. It was a gay pride parade, Carnival, and Saturday-night clubbing all rolled into one celebration.

  The crowd’s roar didn’t subside until Jared and his opponent, Carlos Ortega from Argentina, began their five-minute warm-up. I couldn’t help getting misty-eyed. Jared had been lifted to hero status within the gay community, and his legions were out in force to support their man. Electric waves of pride surged through me as their cheer rose to a deafening pitch. We had traveled a long, bumpy road to experience this, and the joy of the moment became overwhelming.

  Spencer and Harman sat to my left, and they must have felt the same emotions, because Spencer almost crushed the life out of me with a bear hug. Harman grabbed my hand and gave it a meaningful squeeze. Even Connor, who sat to my right with Roy, gave me a hug.

  When the match started, the tension in the crowd became unbelievably tight, like the strings of a Stradivarius. The fans hung on every strike of the ball and savagely cheered for every point Jared won. They had come to watch their man battle the straight establishment, and Jared gave them their money’s worth with interest. The match turned into a grueling, hard-hitting dogfight. Ortega loved to smack the ball hard, and that fed right into Jared’s strengths. Jared countered with a barrage of angles, running Ortega from side to side before smashing a bullet down the line.

  All my concerns as to whether Jared still had the intensity to play at the top of his game were laid to rest. He was in peak form, and the gays ate it up like raw meat fed to lions. They went riotous when Jared smashed an ace up the centerline to win the match.

  Because Connor and Jared were on opposite sides of the draw, Connor wouldn’t play until the next day, making Jared’s win our only match that day. Roy and I cruised through the practice courts to scout Connor’s first-round opponent while Jared had his post-match interview. Thirty minutes later, we all piled into a van and left for the day. Even though we now had full-time bodyguards, I was still nervous about spending any more time than necessary at the tennis facility.

  We arrived early the next day to get our practice session in before the gates opened. We hung around the players’ lounge for a few hours, downed a quick lunch in the cafeteria, and prepared Connor for his first match. Jared hit with him for twenty minutes on a practice court to warm his muscles and shrink the butterflies in his belly. While the others wandered out to court six to wait for Connor’s match, Spencer and I accompanied Connor back to the locker room, reviewing the game plan one more time. As we arrived at the players’ lounge, we both patted Connor on the back and wished him luck.

  A look of fear crept onto Connor’s face, and I could tell he was feeling sick to his stomach. I remembered that look from the first time he played Jared on the show court of the Windsor Club.

  “Connor,” I said, “you’ll do fine. Just stick to the game plan.”

  “I feel sick,” he said. “I mean really sick, like I might barf on court.”

  Spencer took Connor in his arms. “Come on, Con. Pretend it’s me across the net.”

  Connor pressed his forehead into Spencer’s shoulder and mumbled, “I l
ove you.”

  “I know.”

  “I wish I could be the kind of man….”

  Before he could finish, Spencer pulled back and lifted his index finger to Connor’s lips, shutting him up. “You’re exactly the kind of man I want you to be: a champion.”

  Connor glanced down at his sneakers and shook his head. “I don’t care about the others, but I don’t want to disappoint you two.”

  “Connor,” I said, taking his hand and squeezing, “did I ever tell you about Mats Wilander?”

  He shook his head.

  “Mats was a middleweight groundstroker with fierce powers of concentration, just like you, and he accomplished something that even Borg couldn’t do. He won this tournament the first time he played it in 1982 as an unseeded seventeen-year-old. He did it by being utterly unflappable. During this tournament, I’m calling you Mats.”

  Connor smirked with an undercurrent of joy, obviously liking the comparison. “Call me any damned thing you like. You earned the right.”

  “Ok, Mats, enough of this sentimental hogwash,” I said. “We’ll see you at the court.”

  Spencer pushed me through the crowd toward court six, with Bruno ahead and Gunther following. As we came abreast of the line to get into the already-packed bleachers, we jerked to a halt, and I sensed Spencer’s whole body stiffening. I turned my head to see him scowl at the line of people waiting to get in. Following his gaze, I saw why. Shar Paulot stood in line with her arm laced around the waist of a young Latin man. Carrie Bennett stood directly in front of them. I wheeled over to Carrie’s side.

  “Fancy meeting you here.”

  “Well, hello, stranger. What a wonderful surprise.”

  “Darling,” Shar said, “I’d like you to meet Raoul. He’s a painter from Guatemala.”

  I introduced Spencer, who nodded his head without a word or a change of facial expression.