SLAMMIN'

by Marcus Cootsona

  “Zelda is a blogger for FeltandSeam.com,” said Willy.

  “And stats wonk. I like to play with figures,” she said, looking at Willy.

  Willy arched a happy eyebrow back at her.

  “Actually, I am FeltandSeam.com,” she said.

  “So you chose writer?” said Wally.

  “Tennis writer. There’s a difference.”

  “Besides the extra noun?”

  “Or adjective, in this case.”

  “Right. Your ad,” said Wally.

  “Sorry. Daughter of an English prof. Anyway, they told me tennis journalism was confining. I just didn’t know it was only a three-lead profession.”

  “You mean Roger, Rafa and Maria?” said Wally.

  “More like ads, ads and ads. But I’m a traditionalist, or a sentimentalist. I’m going the investigative, impoverished route.”

  “Zelda’s here doing a piece on the life of a qualifier,” said Willy.

  “No sane mag would run it, so I will,” she said.

  “No sane person would do what I’m doing, either,” said Wally. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks. You know I watched you today,” said Zelda. “You’re like barely-controlled court rage. How do you hit like that?”

  “Bad diet. Family problems. Broken car window.”

  Zelda nodded her head and grinned. “You’re also good copy. I want to follow you to the Open and write about it.”

  “I don’t know,” said Wally.

  “Bro –”

  “I won’t be in the way,” said Zelda. “You keep a diary of your training and your experiences and I’ll come and watch you in New Haven and New York. It’s simple.”

  “I like your optimism. And what about revealing personal data?”

  “I’ll try to keep my self-revelations to a minimum.”

  Wally smiled. He liked her. She was clever. What was she doing in the tennis press?

  “I’ll take that smile as a yes,” she said. “Can we start the interview now?”

  “I think we have. But let’s continue it back at this house I don’t own. My dog and I have an early bedtime.”

  Willy shook his head and tried to stop the invitation, but Wally either missed the signal or it was a revenge brush-off for the new obligation.

  “Sure. I understand. Old dogs get tired,” said Zelda.

  “You know the expression. It’s not the years–”

  “It’s the miles.”

  “Right. But sometimes it’s also the years. And the balls whacked.”

  Zelda smiled at Willy again. This was trouble.

  Willy, Wally and Rod drove back to the Margincalls’ with Zelda on Willy’s lap. After a steak, red wine and cake dinner, all of which Wally was enjoined from enjoying, they stayed at the table and Wally recounted his highlight-light playing days. Willy shamelessly plugged the book, spun tales of their futures and tried not to lech after Zelda. Then, true to his words, at seven Wally excused himself and he and Rod Laver the Dog went off to bed.

  Two drinks later, Willy’s flimsy anti-lech resolve crumbled like a Phoenix spec home, and he knew the player party had been a mistake. He didn’t string racquets that evening, but his hands were busy. He and Zelda thoroughly enjoyed the mammoth house on the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach, two bottles of the Margincalls’ Margaux and each other. Her parents might have even raised a glass if they’d seen her. That evening, Zelda Fitzgerald drank like a writer and partied like a flapper.

  Saturday was the finals. The match was at one, but Wally woke at six again with the nerves of a first-year bomb tech. A win would send him to the National Playoffs, but today was going to be a test of patience and knee bend. The victory speed bump was a calculating junk artist named, Jose Pusherr. Jose had dominated college ball, but had sluiced a promising ATP tour career when he blew out his right, hitting-side elbow slamming his racquet into a reinforced courtside bench after a loss. Three years and seven unsuccessful surgeries later, he was coaching at a junior college, hitting lefty and still jonesing for the show. His inherent off-hand weakness ruled out flat shots and he manipulated pace and space with high-revolution slice and sidespin. He had career wins over four players in the top fifty. Names that Wally did know. He could derail Wally’s train before it got to Yale for its next stop.

  Wally ran, stretched and meditated for a long minute or two, and he could still not calm himself. In his warm-up with Willy at Pebble Beach, attended by a tweet-happy tennis flash mob smartphone filming him, and a few more journalists and bloggers, he hit harder than before, but missed a lot of baselines. Still, pens moved on notepads and soft voices talked to tape recorders and the temperature climbed.

  At Chamisal at one o’clock, it was eighty-five degrees; highlighting one good reason one hundred sixty year-olds did not go out on tour or join Delta Force. Three days of hard tennis in some heat took a lot of recovery, even with a providential default. No wonder del Potro weighed only two fourteen.

  Wally shook hands with Jose, and found him to be one of the calmest, most relaxed tennis players he’d ever met. After all the surgeries he’d endured, he just seemed happy to play again. He was the opposite of the man in the stories, and oozed an almost a spiritual presence. Jose’s calm energy disarmed Wally and immediately put him at ease, increasing the sense of fatigue and foreboding and sending him off further off his game.

  Once the match started, it careened like a student driver. Jose blunted Wally’s power and Wally squelched Jose’s radical revolutions. But the thing was close. Tournament tennis was more fun now than it was earlier in his life, but the extra adrenaline had left him extra exhausted. It was his legageddon. Wally missed a hopper-full of desperate second or third shots and some twisty serves simply because his legs were bagged. The quick close was his only play and Wally didn’t always find the range. Maybe a hundred ten pounds next stringing would help. Wally didn’t really have an answer, but one came to him anyway. He barely won the first set, 7 – 5, lost the second 6 – 3 and was at 6-all in the third when a tempestuous second wind blew in.

  The crowd had followed every shot and tittle and had grown to over a thousand that included a local TV crew and some bikers. As they went into the tiebreaker, Wally peripheralized Flint, standing in the crowd with the inaudible agent Steel, watching and cheering him on. Why were they there? And were they actually Penn & Teller doppelgangers? Seeing them, scenes of Danielle in a stunning new outfit also playing tennis somewhere in the world with the slack-lipped Donald Grosser overtook him. His power came back, his legs felt springy and he won the breaker 7 – 5 to clinch the match.

  When it was finished, he was completely wrung out, but he was elated. He was going on to New Haven.

  This afternoon, Danielle had been working through him and he was thankful.

  When they met at net for the post-match handshake, Jose was a changed man. He looked at Wally with venom and anger, the earlier sangfroid boiled bone dry. The game had gotten close and Jose’s evil twin had relieved him in the ninth. Instead of shaking Wally’s hand, Jose hugged him, but held on and said softly with a clenched jaw, “You may think you’re fooling me, but I know what you’re doing. You’re juicin’. You may be able to mask it now, but if you make it to the Open, they’ll test you and find you out. And just so you know, I wouldn’t want to go through what you’ve gone through to get your strength.”

  “It’s not for everybody,” said Wally.

  “Yeah, it isn’t. And by the way, Mr. Straw Hat –”

  It wasn’t straw, it was a Panama.

  “– I’m filing a protest with the USTA.”

  He let Wally go, went to his bag, opened it up, took out all his racquets and smashed them to dust, chips and grommet strips, as two USTA suits and his company hardgoods’ rep looked on. Wrong reaction. There went his gripe cred. And his racquet deal.

  Wally understood the emotion. Earlier in his career, he had been a repeat finalist for the Marat Safin Racquet Atomization Prize himself. Problem was, you felt momentar
ily better and then you had to go buy new racquets. Calm was cheaper.

  A gaggle flocked around Wally. Some looking for irregular-surface autographs, some wanting just to touch him and some wanting him to touch them in a more private setting. It was wondrous what a few two hundred miles per hour serves did for social possibilities, and book sales.

  Wally saw how his story could help the game. And it didn’t end there. Tennis blew at curating its heritage, but Rod Laver the Dog had won fans and helped a new generation discover Rod Laver, the legend. Good dog.

  Sadly, the Posse didn’t come to spectate. Saturday lessons, probably. Good thing the U.S. Open final was on a Sunday. That is, when it wasn’t on a Monday. Wally wished they’d seen it, though. He wished his kids had, too.

  Sophie arrived in a scurry right as he finished, with Deuce and Addie and Dirk in matching carbon fiber hoodies.

  Deuce hurried up to his dad. “Addie made us late. What happened?”

  “I won,” he said, then cleared his throat for effect, “of course.”

  “Good, ‘cause you looked wiped,” said Deuce.

  “You should see the other guy,” said Wally. “And his racquets.”

  “By the way, I really can drive to a tournament,” said Sophie.

  “I told you we should have taken Dirk’s M3,” said Addie. “It’s really fast.” Then, to soften it, “According to the literature.”

  “Yeah, but first you have to wake up to get in the car,” said Deuce.

  Addie saw Sophie eyeing Willy and Zelda and added, “Uncle Willy, what did you do?”

  “I partied,” he said innocently.

  Sophie didn’t look festive.

  “Congratulations, Mr. Wilson,” said Dirk, shaking his hand and handing him a carbon fiber Panama. “This is from me.”

  “Thanks,” said Wally, inspecting the hat. Would it be hot? Fireproof?

  Agent Flint came up from behind him. “Sweet hat. Bulletproof?”

  “Agent Flint?”

  “Parking lot. Ten minutes. I have something I think you’ll want to hear.”

  Not again.

  “So, dad, can Dirk and I take the Mustang back?” said Addie.

  What was the right answer here? He’d need to be careful. Fortunately, Stan, the head pro, motioned him over for the awards presentation. He liked Stan.

  “I’ll be right back,” said Wally.

  “So will we,” said Sophie, grabbing Willy and pulling him away. From the first look she had somehow known down to the vitals and the details about Zelda. She and Willy went off to talk about the proper personal distance from literary figures.

  Wally bestrode the thirty-six year-old redwood stadium court observation deck like a colossus in shorts and happily accepted the winner’s trophy. He said a few words specifically thanking Danielle, finished signing a few more shirts, foreheads and a stuffed Australian Shepard toy and told his family he’d just be a minute.

  Then he segued to agent Flint.

  FOURTEEN

  “We had her and we lost her.”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry to tell you this,” said Agent Flint, “but we believe your wife has been re-kidnapped.”

  “Re-kidnapped?” said Wally.

  “That’s the current theory.”

  Wally, Flint, Steel and fourteen agents all checking out some gun samples stood in the Chamisal parking lot, among the eucalyptus trees and the tournament afterglow.

  The situation had changed. So had the transportation.

  The four black Suburbans were all there as expected and were now covered with sponsor decals for Sig-Sauer, Axe, Monster and Men’s Warehouse. Flint explained that since the Bin Laden raid, the Navy was having their best year ever. All the agencies were competing for attention with the SEAL’s and looking for ways to raise their profile, revenue and recruits. With no terrorist belt notches of their own, Flint’s front had bulked up on backers.

  But Flint never said what agency he worked for. So how could they recruit? And whichever one it was, this case couldn’t be helping their closure stats. The Navy was still up a set and a break. And as Danielle would say, they had a brand.

  “Federer didn’t win the French Open,” Flint went on, “but he took it to Rafa. On his home course. Naturally, we expected an angry response from the kidnappers, or more demands or something. But there was nothing.”

  “I remember.”

  “So we traced the ownership of the Woodside house through some shell companies and offshore accounts and came back to the owner, Donald Grosser.”

  “Danielle’s boss?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was abducted and taken to his own house? I don’t get it.”

  “We didn’t either, so we looked into his other properties. Paris, Geneva, Dubai and Tahoe. They were all financed by the same Swiss investor group.”

  “Did you go check Tahoe?” said Wally.

  “Immediately. It was our best shot. Same time zone. Short drive. You see, the agency can’t really afford Paris right now.”

  But they can bring sixteen guys to a tennis tournament? Maybe a few more stickers would help.

  “And?” said Wally.

  “They were there after Woodside and now they’re gone.”

  “Where?”

  “We don’t know. The trail ends there. The communications have all stopped.” Flint took a moment. “And there were signs of a struggle.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It was clear. Broken locks. Breached windows. Spattered Nutella. All their gear was left behind too. The computer, the tennis equipment and the mannequins. But it looks like everyone was taken, including the original kidnappers.”

  “By other kidnappers?”

  “It looks that way, yes.”

  Silence. Wally was reeling. How do kidnappers get kidnapped? Isn’t there a code? Or professional courtesy? And why the Nutella rage?

  “Okay, I get that they’re gone,” he said. “But what did this have to do with Donald Grosser?”

  “Good question,” said Flint, smoothing his new double-breasted. “We think he may have planned the whole thing. The dinner cruise assault, the shuffling to different houses and countries, the abduction itself.”

  “But he’s a start-up CEO who gropes Danielle at the Christmas party.”

  “He wanted to seduce your wife.”

  “So he fake kidnapped her?”

  Flint nodded resignedly. “And planned to stage a pretend escape that would make him look like the hero.”

  “No. That wasn’t serious. He’s just…that can’t be it.”

  But it made sense. Sort of.

  “We found photos of her on the computer. Letters to her he never sent. He was smitten. I can understand it actually. I mean your wife is smokin’–”

  Wally raised a brow.

  “– attractive. Mr. Wilson, he couldn’t have been the first one.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I haven’t really paid attention.”

  He would now.

  Wally put down his trophy and bent forward to catch his breath and keep from passing out.

  So Donald paid some foreigners for a fake abduction while the woman he thought he loved wasn’t even getting a salary? What a wanker. Was there really a Swiss investor group, or a start-up? Were the demands ever serious? Did they expect Federer to lose in the final? What kind of deviant was this guy?

  “This is at least sexual harassment,” said Wally.

  “At least,” agreed Agent Flint.

  “So help me sort this out. My wife’s boss hires some bad guys to steel her and run her around the world playing kidnap-quest and just by chance he and everyone with him is snatched by other badder guys?”

  “That’s our working theory. I know it seems farfetched.”

  “No. At this point, not particularly.”

  “However, we think there may be a connection between all the snatchings. Maybe the Swiss. We’re looking into it.”

  “So everyone was in
on it?”

  “We think it’s possible. One of them even used to do voiceover.”

  Fondue Face, thought Wally.

  “So what now?”

  “We’re following all possible leads. And we’re waiting to see if they contact you. Whoever they are currently.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Let’s just see what happens, okay?”

  Wally paced in the gravel.

  “Mr. Wilson, I’m so sorry.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Look, we have to go now to a Glock demo day. Will you be okay?”

  “Sure. Yeah. Have a blast. Fund the agency. Go to Paris. I’ll turn my ringer up and wait.”

  Flint was about to say something else consoling, but stopped himself. Instead, he said, “Good match today. I have you in the office pool to win the Open.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “And you’re on my fantasy team. I got you cheap.”

  “I’m flattered. I think.”

  Flint turned to go.

  Wally stood astride a parking space, still stunned by the news.

  Flint stopped and looked back at Wally.

  “We’re doing all we can.”

  And so are they, thought Wally.

  Flint waved a parting salute and as one of the agents filmed him, he spritzed on some Axe body spray, drank a cold Monster, carefully showing the full label, and closed the Suburban’s door. On it was the Men’s Warehouse logo. Under that, George Zimmer’s TV signoff, “I guarantee it.”

  Wally hoped so.

  The Suburbans sped off.

  Wally paced more and tried to calm himself. And didn’t.

  What a wondrous bounty of negatives. Danielle taken again. By messy, unsociable kidnappers. Somehow this seemed worse than before. The first time was a hookup ruse. But this new group might be real and dangerous. They didn’t communicate. They didn’t make demands. Who were they, the NFL? They might not even like Federer.

  He tried the calm thing again.

  He convinced himself he had no doubt Danielle was coming home. The Flint fourteen would find her. And Donald was probably good for a nice ransom payout. Just not a paycheck. But after all this was settled, there sure wasn’t going to be any start-up for Danielle to go back to. Wally knew he had to put aside the emotions and train harder. And win the U.S. Open. For her. For them. For Flint’s fantasy team.