by Sandra Brown
Hiring a stud was just another entry on their busy agenda.
Fine with him, so long as the money made it into that box.
Griff removed the signature card and glanced at it. “What about the physical? What if I flunk?”
The couple glanced at each other, but Foster spoke for both of them. “We’ll take it on faith that you won’t.”
“That’s a lot of faith.”
“If we anticipated a problem, you wouldn’t be here.”
“Okay, I get my advance, and you get my clean bill of health. And then?”
“And then you wait to be notified of where you need to be and when. Laura’s next ovulation.”
Griff looked at her. She was gazing back at him calmly, apparently not caring that her ovulation was being discussed. He would have liked some clarification on exactly what ovulation entailed, but he wasn’t going to ask. He didn’t need to know. He knew how to fuck, and that was all they were requiring of him.
“You’ll meet once a month for as long as it takes to conceive,” Speakman explained. He lifted his wife’s hand to his mouth and kissed the palm. “Hopefully it won’t take too many cycles.”
“Yeah, I hope that, too,” Griff said. “I’ll be half a million dollars richer.”
Feeling restless again, he got up and moved to one of the bookcases. He read a few of the titles, those that were in English, but they didn’t register with him. They sounded like philosophy and boring stuff. Not an Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiaasen among them.
“Something troubling you, Griff?”
He turned back to the couple. “Why me?”
“I explained that,” Speakman replied.
“There are a lot of blond, blue-eyed guys around.”
“But none with your particular genetic makeup. You have everything we could wish for our child. Strength, amazing stamina, speed, agility, even perfect eyesight and uncanny coordination. I could go on. There were articles written about you, published not just in sports magazines but in medical journals, about what an incredible specimen of the human male body you are.”
Griff remembered the articles, written by trainers and sports medicine experts, one of whom had dubbed him “a biologic masterpiece.” He’d caught hell over that in the locker room, his teammates taunting him about his so-called perfection and wanting to test it with the crudest physical contests they could devise. It was another matter when he took chicks to bed. They really got off on screwing a “masterpiece.”
But he also remembered the scathing editorials that had followed his fall from grace. In them he had been lambasted not only for his crime but for squandering his God-given attributes.
God-given, my ass, he thought.
Those who had marveled over him wouldn’t have thought he was so bloody perfect if they’d known the two who’d spawned him. If Mr. and Mrs. Speakman could have seen what he’d come from, they would have had second thoughts, too. Did they really want the blood of his parents flowing through the veins of their kid?
“You don’t know anything about my origins. Maybe I just lucked out, got a few good genes that stacked up right by sheer accident. My gene pool could be mucked up with any number of bad seeds.”
“We would take that chance no matter who the sperm donor was, even myself,” Speakman said. “Why are you trying to talk us out of this, Griff?”
“I’m not.” Actually, to some extent, he was. He’d spent five years in prison thinking about the bad choices he’d made. If he’d learned nothing else, he’d learned not to jump in headfirst until he knew exactly how deep the water was.
He said, “I just don’t want to get into the middle of this and then have something go wrong that I’ll be blamed for.”
“What could go wrong?” Laura asked.
He laughed bitterly. “You haven’t been around much, have you? Believe me, things can go wrong. For instance, what if I fire blanks?”
“You mean, what if you have a low sperm count?” Speakman asked.
Griff gave a brusque nod.
“Do you have reason to suspect that’s the case?”
“No. But I don’t know. I’m just asking, What if?”
“When you go for your medical exam, have it tested.” Speakman paused, then said, “I believe you’re experiencing a carryover of prison paranoia.”
“You’re goddamn right I am.”
A heavy silence followed. Speakman rubbed his jaw as though sorting through words to find the right ones. “Now that the subject has been broached, let’s talk about your incarceration.”
“What about it?”
“I’ll admit that it factored into our choosing you.”
Griff covered his heart with his hand, pretending to have had his feelings hurt. “You mean there was more to it than my being the ideal physical specimen?”
Speakman ignored his sarcasm. “You cheated your team, the league, and most of all your fans. Making you a persona non grata, Griff. I’m afraid you’ll be subject to insults.”
“I haven’t had any confrontations.”
“There hasn’t been time for any,” Laura said.
Her reasonable tone irritated him. “I’m not expecting to win any popularity contests, okay? I cheated and broke the law. I was punished for my crime. All that’s behind me.”
“But there’s also the matter of the bookmaker who died.”
Griff had wondered when that would come up. If they had any smarts at all, and he believed both did, they would inevitably have asked about Bandy. He was surprised only that it was the wife who had cracked open the delicate topic.
“Bill Bandy didn’t die, Mrs. Speakman. He was murdered.”
“You were a suspect.”
“I was questioned.”
“You were arrested.”
“But never charged.”
“Neither was anyone else.”
“So?”
“So the murder remains unsolved.”
“Not my problem.”
“I hope not.”
“What the hell—”
“Did you do it?”
“No!”
Their exchange was heated and rapid, followed by a tense silence that Griff refused to break. He’d said what he had to say. He didn’t kill Bill Bandy. Period. The end.
“However,” Speakman said in the soft and conciliatory tone of an undertaker, “the shadow of suspicion was cast on you, Griff. You were eventually released for lack of evidence, but that doesn’t vindicate you.”
“Look, if you think I killed Bandy, then what the hell am I doing here?” He flung his arms wide to encompass the room, the house. “Why would you want me to father your kid?”
“We don’t think you committed murder,” Speakman said. “Absolutely not.”
Griff shifted his angry gaze over to Laura to see if she shared her husband’s belief in his innocence. Her expression remained impassive, not accusatory, but sure as hell not exonerating.
Then why was she hiring him to go to bed with her? Did he really need this kind of abuse?
Yeah, unfortunately he did. He needed the money. He had to get back on his feet, and six hundred grand was a better than fair shot at doing so. To hell with them, with her, if she thought he’d clobbered Bandy. They must not have felt too ambiguous about it, either way, or he wouldn’t be here. On top of being crazy, they were hypocrites.
“The matter of Bandy’s homicide as well as the federal crimes for which you were convicted remain black marks against your name, Griff,” Speakman said.
“I’m aware of that.”
“So how realistic is it that someone around here will hire you? How realistic is it that someone will hire you for any amount, much less for what Laura and I are offering?”
The answer was obvious. When Griff declined to waste his breath on it, Speakman continued. “Your prospects are bleak. You can’t play football. You can’t coach football. You can’t write about or talk about football, because none of the media outlets will hire you to do so. You a
dmitted having to liquidate all your assets to pay your debts, indicating to me that you didn’t save for a rainy day.”
Speakman seemed to enjoy highlighting his shortcomings. Maybe, Griff thought, he should challenge him to a footrace. See who was better at that. “I made three million a year from the Cowboys, plus endorsements,” he said tightly. “Everybody got a chunk of it, starting with my agent and the IRS, but what I got to keep, I spent, and had a whale of a great time doing it. What’s your point?”
“My point is that you seem to have no head for business or you would have appropriated your income differently. It also appears you had no talent for larceny, or you wouldn’t have got caught.”
“A trap was laid for me. I walked into it.”
“Nevertheless.” After a beat, Speakman said, “I’m not trying to insult you, Griff.”
“Really?”
Again Speakman ignored his caustic tone. “You asked why you were chosen.”
“I’d almost forgotten the question.”
“It required a long explanation. And I wanted to be brutally honest about our reasons for extending you this offer. Primarily, you have the genetic makeup to create the child we desire. Second, for reasons just discussed, you’re in urgent need of the money we’re offering to pay. Last, you’re totally independent.
“You have no family, no real friends, no attachments, no one to whom you must account, and that is a tremendous benefit to us. We’ve emphasized the confidentiality this arrangement demands. We’re the only three people who will ever know that I didn’t sire the child Laura will conceive.”
Griff was somewhat placated. Besides, he couldn’t afford to get huffy. Especially over the bald truth. He moved to the desk, picked up a crystal paperweight, weighed it in his palm. “You’re putting a lot of trust in me to keep my mouth shut.”
Speakman chuckled. “Actually, we’re not. We’re putting a lot of trust in greed.”
“Six hundred thousand?” Griff set down the paperweight and grinned at Speakman. “Not all that much when you think about it. Not what I’d call greedy.”
Laura looked at her husband. “You haven’t told him the rest?”
“We hadn’t got that far,” Speakman replied.
Griff said, “The rest?”
Speakman rolled his chair over to the desk and picked up the paperweight. Taking a handkerchief from his pants pocket, he used it to polish the crystal as he smiled up at Griff. “It’s not that we question your integrity.”
“Bullshit. You’d be fools not to question it.”
“Right,” Speakman said, laughing softly. “We would.” With the handkerchief still wrapped around the paperweight, he replaced it on the desk, moved it an eighth of an inch to the left, then slowly withdrew the handkerchief, which he refolded into a perfect square before returning it to his pocket.
“So, for my and Laura’s peace of mind, and to ensure your silence, you’ll be paid one million dollars upon the birth of our child. Additionally, you’ll receive one million dollars each year on his birthday. And all you have to do in return is forget you ever knew us.”
CHAPTER
5
GRIFF TOSSED THE HONDA’S KEYS TO THE VALET PARKING attendant and walked briskly into the sleek lobby of the upscale building. A swank hotel occupied the lower twelve floors, condos the top twelve.
The lobby bar was relatively quiet on this midweek evening. A pianist was playing Sinatra-type standards on a white baby grand. Most of the tables were occupied by businessmen, nursing cocktails while they played one-upmanship.
The bar accessed a lighted patio where seating was available, but Griff chose to stay indoors, where he could enjoy the air-conditioning while keeping an eye on the entrance. He claimed a free table, signaled the waitress, and ordered a bourbon.
“House or label?”
“House is fine.”
“Water?”
“Rocks.”
“Want to start a tab?”
“Please.”
“Will anyone be joining you?”
“No.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Although the occasion—getting out of prison—and the day he’d had—his bizarre meeting with the Speakmans—seemed to call for a highball or two, Griff didn’t really like to drink. Since he’d had to mop up regurgitated booze so often as a kid, he’d never really developed a taste for it.
But the drink the waitress delivered to him looked and smelled good. The first sip went down smoothly, although he could tell by the instant fire it ignited in his belly that it had been over five years since he’d had spirits of any kind. He cautioned himself to go slowly. He wasn’t sure how long he’d have to wait.
A million dollars.
“You’ll be paid in cash,” Speakman had told him. “It will be placed in the safe-deposit box, and only you, I, and Laura will be signatories. There will be no records kept, no paperwork of any kind. Once Laura conceives, absolutely no connection can ever be made between you and us. If our paths happen to cross, which will be unlikely, you won’t recognize us. We’ll be meeting for the first time. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Conversation was suspended when Manuelo came in to deliver a phone message to Mrs. Speakman. She read it, then excused herself, saying she would be back shortly. She left, Manuelo trailing her.
Speakman noticed Griff watching the manservant as he silently closed the double doors behind himself. “Don’t worry about Manuelo,” he said. “He speaks only a few words of English. I told him that you were an old school chum who was passing through. He wouldn’t have recognized you from your football days. By the time he reached the U.S., you were in Big Spring.”
Laura Speakman returned almost immediately. Her husband asked, “Anything important?”
“Joe McDonald with a quick question that he didn’t think could wait till morning.”
Foster laughed. “That’s Joe. Always in a hurry.”
While they were chatting about the impatient Joe, Griff thought of another problem. “Cash will be hard to spend,” he said abruptly.
After a slight hesitation, Foster said, “Yes, I’m afraid that will present some difficulties. I imagine that you’ll be under close scrutiny by the IRS and the FBI, since there was some speculation about your empty bank accounts at the time of your arrest.”
“It was assumed you had money tucked away somewhere.”
Beneath Laura Speakman’s cool statement, he heard an implied question mark. “Just like it was assumed I knocked off Bandy,” he said tightly. “I didn’t, and I didn’t.”
She held his stare for several moments, then said, “All right.”
But she said it like she was only half convinced, and that pissed him off. Even though he was going to bed her, he didn’t think he would ever like her. She was good to look at, but he’d never been attracted to the ball-breaker type. And why was she busting his when they were vital to what she needed him for? He considered bringing this irony to her attention, then decided not to. He doubted she would see the humor in it.
He said, “I need the money, Mrs. Speakman. The money is the only reason I would even consider doing this. At least I’ve been honest about it.”
His implication was clear—that they were being less than honest about their reasons. She was about to take issue when her husband intervened. “You haven’t asked me for financial advice, Griff, but I’ll offer some. Get a job that earns you a paycheck. Have a checking account, credit cards. Normal things. If you do get audited, how you’ll explain your millionaire’s lifestyle will be up to you. Probably for the rest of your life, they’ll be looking for a source of your income.”
He raised an eyebrow, adding, “Perhaps some of your former business associates can assist you with the matter. I’m sure that on occasion they use banking facilities abroad that don’t question the source of great sums of cash.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Griff said. “But even if they do, I won’t be associating with t
hem anymore.” He looked over at Laura and added, “Ever.” He emphasized it with a curt bob of his head.
Speakman asked Griff if he had any more questions. They cleared up some minor points. And then Griff raised one that turned out to be major. It concerned a potential problem with the long-term payout. Ten, fifteen, twenty years down the road, he didn’t want to encounter a dilemma for which a solution hadn’t been worked out ahead of time.
A heated discussion ensued. No solution was reached, but Speakman promised to think hard on it and get back to Griff with a resolution as soon as possible. Could Griff live with that? he asked. Grudgingly, Griff said he could. That settled, Speakman suggested they seal their deal with a handshake, which they did.
Speakman then invited him to stay for dinner.
Before Griff could accept or decline, Mrs. Speakman said, “Oh, darling, I’m sorry, but I didn’t notify Mrs. Dobbins that we’d have a guest and she’s already left for the day. I thought the idea was to keep Mr. Burkett’s visit here a secret. Manuelo is one thing, but…”
Looking flustered for the first time since she joined them, she searched for excuses not to sit at the table with him. Apparently she had no qualms over having carnal knowledge of him, so long as she didn’t have to eat with him. “Besides,” she added lamely, “I’ve got a massive amount of work waiting for me upstairs.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Griff said. “I’ve got plans. In fact, I’m already late.”
“Then don’t let us keep you any longer,” Speakman said.
Laura Speakman stood up. She seemed relieved that he was leaving, and possibly just a bit ashamed over her inhospitality. “You should be hearing from me in about two weeks, Mr. Burkett. How can I reach you?”
He gave her his phone number, the one Turner had connected in the shabby apartment. She wrote it down on a slip of paper. “I’ll call and tell you where to meet me.”