by Sandra Brown
Not knowing was making him crazy, but all he could do was wait.
As he did every morning, he made a notation on the calendar, then showered. When he stepped out of the tub, he heard his newspaper being thunked against his front door. Disinclined to dress yet, he wrapped a towel around his waist. He retrieved the paper from his small porch, went into the kitchen, and started a pot of coffee.
While waiting for it to brew, he perused the front page and drank orange juice from the carton. He flipped the paper over, read the headlines beneath the fold, and finding them relating to the same world crises that they’d related to yesterday, he pulled out the sports section.
The headline caused his heart to stutter. Blood rushed to his head and made him momentarily dizzy. “The fuck is this?”
BURKETT QUESTIONED IN DEATH OF BOOKMAKER, the headline read.
FURTHER WOES FOR FORMER COWBOY?
VETERAN COACH DENOUNCES FALLEN STAR.
Recognizing the stories, he looked at the dateline. Not this morning’s issue. It was five years old, and though it was well preserved, he saw now that the paper on which the sports section was printed didn’t match the rest of the newspaper. It had yellowed some with age.
Rodarte.
He knocked over a kitchen chair in his rush. In seconds, he was out of the kitchen, through the living area, and flinging open his front door. He charged out onto his narrow patch of yard and scanned the street. He didn’t really expect to see the green sedan, and he didn’t. Rodarte had given himself time to get away.
“Son of a bitch!” Griff grabbed the towel, which was slipping off his waist, and stormed back inside, slamming the door behind him. Rodarte hadn’t reappeared in almost two months. Now, just when Griff had begun to think—hope—the bastard had given up and gone away, this.
Clever of him, planting this old sports section in today’s newspaper where Griff was certain to find it. Rodarte was rubbing his nose in the shit he’d made of his life five years ago.
When he felt composed enough to confront the fine print, he righted the chair and poured himself a cup of coffee, then sat down at the kitchen table and began to read. Every word was like a blow, hurtful because it was true.
Not since Pete Rose’s gambling and Jose Canseco’s admission to using steroids had a professional athlete scandalized himself as much as the record-breaking, all-star quarterback Griff Burkett had. Media coverage had been extensive and pervasive. The story had made headlines internationally. ESPN had dedicated hours of programming to it.
But Rodarte had done well to choose this particular issue of The Dallas Morning News, because these stories were summarizing chronicles of his long, inexorable fall.
The gambling had started small, but it grew like a creeping vine he couldn’t kill or control, until it dominated, becoming more exciting for him than the Sunday games. Winning big on a wager was more thrilling than winning big on the gridiron.
It had evolved into an addiction. Before it had got out of hand, he should have been smart enough to recognize the danger signs. Maybe he had. Maybe he had just ignored them.
He got caught up in a dangerous but exhilarating spiral. If he won, he raised the stakes of the next bet in order to win more. If he lost, he raised the stakes to recover the loss. The spiral became a maelstrom that eventually sucked him under.
Bill Bandy looked more like a tax accountant than one’s idea of a bookie. He was a slightly built man who probably had weighed no more on the day he died than on the day he graduated high school. He had thinning brown hair, a small face with a pointed chin, and a sharp nose. His pinched nostrils and pale blue eyes waged a constant war with airborne allergens. His hands were as soft and white as a woman’s, and one got the sense they would feel moist if touched.
No one would have pegged him for a mobster. Yet that was exactly what he was. It was rumored that, back in St. Louis, before he’d been relocated to Dallas, he had poisoned an uncle who had double-crossed him. Griff never knew if that was fact or fiction.
Bandy worked for Vista, the syndicate’s dummy corporation that ostensibly ran a tin-mining operation somewhere in South America. The actual location and other details were vague. Vista’s real enterprises were high-stakes gambling, money laundering, and, Griff suspected, drug trafficking.
Vista’s miners in the Las Colinas high-rise wore designer suits and diamond-studded Rolexes. They packed heat even when they went to the men’s room. They had bodyguards with automatic pistols and cars with bulletproof windows.
You did not fuck with them.
That was what Bill Bandy had told Griff over a plate of chicken enchiladas one night at his favorite Mexican restaurant. Griff was midway into his fourth season with the Cowboys. Bandy had invited him to dinner to discuss business, specifically the repayment of his gambling debt, which was now three hundred thousand and change.
“You don’t fuck with these guys, Griff. If it was me, I’d extend you some more credit. Hell, you make millions. I know you’ll be good for the money in a few months. But these guys?” He blotted his dripping nose with a damp white handkerchief. “There’s no charity in their hearts. Believe me.”
Griff dunked a tortilla chip into the salsa and munched it noisily. He took a sip of frozen margarita and winked at the starstruck teenage girls staring at him from the next table. “What are they going to do? Send some guy with hairy knuckles to break both my legs?”
“You think this is funny?”
“I think you’re about to panic when panic isn’t called for. They compound the interest every week, making me a profit center for them. So what’s their problem?”
“They want their money.”
Finally Bandy’s funereal tone captured Griff’s attention. No longer nervous or fidgety, Bandy’s pale gaze was rock steady. Even his nose had dried up temporarily. Griff thought maybe the fable of his poisoning an elderly uncle was true.
Maintaining that cold expression, he continued. “Be glad they sent me as the messenger, or you might not be starting on Sunday, or any Sunday for the remainder of the season. Make no mistake, they can inflict serious injury on you, Griff. They will.”
“It wouldn’t make sense for them to injure me. If I can’t play, they’ll never get their money.”
The argument didn’t make a dent in Bandy’s resolute expression. Griff pushed aside his plate and sighed with disgust that he had to deal with this now. The team was facing the Falcons on Sunday in Atlanta. The Cowboys were favored, but not by much. It wasn’t going to be a cakewalk by any stretch. He should have been psyching himself up for a tough game, studying the playbook, not pandering to gangsters.
“Okay. Give me a few days,” he told Bandy. “I’ll liquidate something. A car. My condo in Florida. Something. What’s the minimum amount that would temporarily satisfy them? Two hundred thousand? That’s more than half what I owe them. Would that buy me some grace?”
Bandy dabbed his leaking eyes with a corner of his handkerchief. “There may be another way.”
“To buy me time?”
“To cancel the debt.”
Griff gaped at him as if he’d said that he could have a week on a desert island with every Playmate of the Month for the past year, that they were all nymphomaniacs with the hots for him, and that no clothes were allowed.
Bandy asked, “Are you willing to meet with them? Discuss options?”
“Where and what time?”
The “them” Bandy had referred to were three men, who welcomed Griff into Vista’s opulent offices with hearty handshakes and unlimited hospitality. What would you like to drink? Help yourself to the tray of sandwiches there. I highly recommend the beef tenderloin with the horseradish sauce. How about a massage after the meeting? We’ve got a girl on staff who’ll give you a massage with a happy ending. Wink, wink. If you get my meaning. Which Griff did.
You’d never know by the reception they gave him that he owed them over a quarter million dollars and that they were making threats against his person
if he didn’t pay this debt immediately.
The only native Texan was tall, trim, darkly tanned, with large and very white teeth. He was an avid golfer who talked loudly, lewdly, and nonstop. It was he who placed his arm across Griff’s shoulders and told him about the masseuse with the magic hands and mouth. Larry was the guy’s name.
Martin had a swarthy, Mediterranean look. He was obese. He didn’t breathe, he wheezed like an off-key bagpipe, and looked like he could go into cardiac arrest at any moment if only his heart could work up the energy.
The third, Bennett, was quiet and unobtrusive. Balding and fair skinned, he sat apart, contributing little but studying Griff with the unblinking, lashless stare of something scaly and venomous.
After the initial greetings, they got down to business. The terms of their proposal were simple: Throw the Atlanta game on Sunday, and his debt would disappear. That was not how they put it, but that was the bottom line.
Martin told him they didn’t expect him to try to lose. “Just don’t play up to your full potential.”
Larry winked again. “Give the fucking Falcons a fucking chance. That’s all.”
“And who knows,” Martin wheezed, “if the Falcons pull out a win, we could throw a little extra bonus your way, in addition to clearing your debt.” Gasp. “Right, Bennett?”
Bennett the Silent nodded his stiff comb-over.
Griff told them he’d think about it.
Fine, they said. He had till Sunday to make up his mind. And just to show their goodwill, they insisted that he avail himself of the massage with the girl, who capped off the fifty-minute rubdown with a blow job. Not that he couldn’t get head whenever he wanted it. There were always girls just dying to notch their bedposts with the Lone Star logo of the Dallas Cowboys. But this girl was exceptional.
On Sunday, while he was suiting up, during the singing of the national anthem, even as he took the field following the opening kickoff, he was still wrestling with his decision. He didn’t know what he would do until late in the fourth quarter, with a 10–10 score, when Dallas was deep in their own territory and it was third and twelve.
He took the snap. Dallas linemen went down like bowling pins under a Falcons blitz. His fastest, strongest running back got blocked by two linebackers. The third one was chugging toward Griff, smelling blood. Scrambling, looking for an open receiver, Griff realized how easy—and convincing—it would be to throw an interception.
Atlanta won 17 to 10.
The partnership was forged.
CHAPTER
19
IF YOU WANT TO PUT SPIN ON IT, YOU GOTTA GET YOUR THUMB under it.” Griff demonstrated the rotating hand motion to Jason Rich. “See? You gotta whip your thumb under just as you release the ball. Now try again.”
He handed over the football. Jason’s face was tense with concentration as he gripped the ball the way Griff had demonstrated and threw a pass. “Much better.”
“One more time, Griff? I think I let go a little too late.”
“Okay, but only one. Practice is about to start.”
Griff saw improvement in the second pass. “Good work, Jason. You’re getting the hang of it. Throw a few thousand more and you’ll have it down pat. You’ll be breaking records.”
Behind his mask, Jason’s sweaty face broke into a grin. “Yesterday was fun. Except for…you know.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“I told my dad. He said you handled it the only way you could. If you had fought them, it would’ve made it worse.”
“I’ll say. Did you see the size of those guys?”
Jason laughed, then said tentatively, “Maybe we could go for milk shakes again sometime.”
“I’d like that.”
“Me, too. See you tomorrow.”
Griff knocked on the top of the boy’s helmet, two taps. “I’ll be here.”
Jason trotted off to join his teammates, who were assembling on the sideline of the practice field. Bolly was among the other dads. Griff raised his hand in greeting, and Bolly waved back.
Griff jogged across the field to retrieve the footballs Jason had thrown and stuffed them into the cloth bag he kept in the trunk of his car. He pulled the drawstring to close the bag and slung it over his shoulder.
That was when he saw Rodarte, standing outside the chain-link fence, watching him.
Griff was already hot from being in the sun for the hour with Jason. When he saw Rodarte, it seemed his blood reached the boiling point in seconds. He had to force himself not to charge the fence.
Unhurried, he went through the gate and joined Rodarte on the other side. The son of a bitch didn’t even deign to look at him. Instead, he stared across the field to the far sideline, where the middle school head coach was cautioning his young team not to let themselves become overheated or dehydrated during practice.
“You’re pathetic, Rodarte,” Griff said. “Collecting old newspapers like a bag lady.”
Rodarte chuckled but still didn’t turn to face him. “Fun reading. I hated keeping it to myself.”
Griff started to grab him by the shoulder and force him around, but he didn’t dare lay a hand on the man. Rodarte would fight back. And if it got ugly, which it inevitably would, there were too many witnesses. In particular Bolly. Griff had promised him there wouldn’t be any trouble. Yesterday the sportswriter had entrusted his son to him. Griff would have hated like hell to betray that trust now.
He could tell Rodarte to go to hell and simply walk away. Let him stand there and dissolve from the heat till he was nothing but a puddle of sweat being absorbed by the hard, baked ground.
But ignoring him wouldn’t be smart. Rodarte’s being there wasn’t coincidence, any more than this morning’s incident with the newspaper was a harmless prank. After staying invisible for weeks, Rodarte had resurfaced. Until Griff knew why, he wouldn’t turn his back on him.
Rodarte reached into his pocket and took out a pack of gum. “I’m trying to quit smoking.”
“Good luck with that. It would be just awful if you got sick and died.”
Rodarte gave him a sly grin as he unwrapped a stick of gum and put it in his mouth. “You still banging that broad?”
Griff’s jaw tensed.
“I suppose since your favorite whore is still out of commission, you gotta get it somewhere.” His grin got slier. “You could do a lot worse. Not only has Mrs. Speakman got a sweet ass but she’s loaded. But I’m sure you know that. Nobody ever called you stupid, Number Ten. A lot of other ugly names, but never stupid.”
Griff didn’t rise to the bait.
“Is she footing your bills these days? Buying you all that neat new stuff?” Rodarte laughed that nasty laugh again and noisily smacked his chewing gum. “Sure she is. And glad to do it. Stuck with a husband who’s only half a man, I’ll bet she’s willing to pay any price to ride a big, strong football hero like you.”
Griff didn’t move, even though he craved to see Rodarte bleed.
Lowering his voice to a suggestive whisper, Rodarte said, “I’ll bet she’s one of those no-nonsense businesswoman types who goes absolutely wild in the sack. Am I right? She works out all her career insecurities on your dick, and she likes to be on top. Come on, Burkett, share. Is she one of those?”
“You’re maggot shit.”
Rodarte barked a laugh. “You’re fucking a paraplegic’s wife and I’m maggot shit?”
“What do you want?”
“Want? Nothing,” Rodarte said innocently. “Just thought I’d drop by, say hi. Didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten you. I wanted to reassure you that when you self-destruct—and you will, you know—I’m gonna be there to see it, and hopefully to help bring it about. I’m so far up your ass, Burkett. You have no idea.”
Griff feared if he stayed any longer he was going to take the first step toward the predicted self-destruction. Which was precisely what Rodarte wanted. Despite his resolve not to turn his back on the man, he did so and began walking a
way.
“Jason’s showing progress.”
Griff whipped back around. Rodarte, laughing softly, spat his wad of gum into the dirt. “The boy hasn’t got much natural talent, but he works hard. Plain to see he worships the ground you walk on. Probably wants to follow in your footsteps. Well, not the cheating and murdering path you took, but your football glory days.”
Squinting at Griff across the space separating them, Rodarte let his evil grin spread across his acne-cratered face. “Be a shame if something were to happen to the boy. A crippling accident or something that would prevent him from following his dream. He might even die.”
Griff took the steps necessary to close the distance between them. “You lay one hand on that kid and—”
“Calm down,” Rodarte said in a cajoling voice. “I was just speculating on the fickle finger of fate. Jesus, you’re a hothead. I try to have a friendly little chat here at the middle school athletic field and you—”
“What do you want, Rodarte?”
He dropped his saccharine pretense, and his eyes turned flinty. “You know what I want.”
“I don’t have any of Vista’s money.”
“They’re not convinced. I’m sure as hell not. And I’m not going to stop with you till I break you and you give it up. I’m as permanent as a birthmark.”
Griff aimed his index finger at him and began backing away. “You stay away from me. You stay away from everyone around me.”
Rodarte laughed. “Or what, Number Ten? Or what?”
Griff violated a condition of his probation, the primo one that Jerry Arnold continually reminded him of: Don’t go near your former associates.
The way Griff saw it, he had no choice. Rodarte had threatened Jason. And the way he’d talked about Laura…The implied threat, which went beyond the nasty stuff, had raised the hair on the back of Griff’s neck. Rodarte wouldn’t have a qualm against harming either of them. Even Laura’s money couldn’t protect her. He would hurt her and Jason without a blink, and would enjoy the hell out of doing it.