Titans

by Tim Green

  "Wow," Cook said, "I feel like James Bond."

  "Yeah," Duffy said, "this stuff just came out. The only weakness is obviously if the subject leaves his car and takes off. That's why you'll never see the traditional tail replaced. That is, until they can come up with something you could plant on the person himself. Who knows, they'll probably do that too one day."

  "Don't worry, Duffy," Cook said. "As long as there's bad guys they'll need good guys to chase them."

  Duffy smiled. "I get my pension in three years anyway," he said. "I got nothing to worry about."

  Cook looked at his man thoughtfully, then closed up the briefcase. "You got those other things I asked for?"

  "One 35mm camera with telephoto lense, one telescopic mike for listening in from up to two hundred feet, and one pair of Zeiss mini-scopes that make a mosquito look like an elephant, yup, I got it all," Duffy said, and hoisted a duffle bag from under his counter giving it to Cook.

  Thanks," Cook said and headed for the door.

  "Hey, Ellis," Duffy said before Cook was gone, "everybody in the office is starting a football pool. Half the money goes to the homeless shelter around the corner. Everybody's too scared of you to ask, but I figured I could. You want in? It's only ten bucks a week."

  Cook stopped just outside the door and furled his brow. "Why didn't anyone want to ask me?"

  "'Cause you're such a hard-ass, I guess," Duffy said casually.

  This surprised Cook.

  "You are kinda tense, man," Duffy explained. Tense or intense. And I think they thought with this whole Rizzo thing that gambling of any kind might kinda set you off."

  "What do I have to do?" Cook said.

  Just fill this out and give it back to me with ten bucks," Duffy said, reaching into his desk and pulling out a parlay sheet. "Whoever has the most correct picks wins the pool."

  Cook took the sheet from Duffy.

  "I'll get it to you tomorrow," he said, waving the sheet over his head as he walked out the door. It shouldn't have bothered him, but Cook thought about being a hard-ass all the way home.

  Before Cook even got out of his office, Grant Carter, who also had a tendency to work late, got a phone call from Camille.

  "Hi, Daddy," she said, sweet as sugar.

  "Hello, Camille . . ."He paused. "I know you want something, dear, so just tell me. I've got a million things to do and a dinner meeting at seven all the way in the city."

  "We 11, traffic won't be bad going in," she said, refusing to be as gruff and businesslike as he.

  "No, I guess not. . . Now, what is it, Camille? I know you don't call me 'Daddy' unless it's something. Otherwise it's 'hey, Dad.'"

  "I can't even talk nice to you without you giving me a hard time, Daddy," she complained with a little laugh.

  This time Carter remained silent, reviewing some notes for his dinner meeting while waiting for Camille to get to the point.

  "Are you there?" she asked.

  "Yes dear, I'm waiting."

  "Well, it's not a big thing for you, I don't think," she said emphasizing the I.

  'Then tell me what it is and we'll hang up. Honestly, Camille, I don't mean to put you off, but I do have a lot to do."

  "OK, Tony has a good friend who's crazy about the team."

  "Everyone's crazy about the team right now," Carter interjected sarcastically, "we're the world champions."

  "Well, Tony asked me to see if I could get him a pass to go into the locker room before the game. Not to bother anybody," she added quickly. "He just wants to see it. I don't know, to see the players. How they get ready or something."

  Grant Carter fixed his attention on the silver championship trophy encased in oak and glass on the wall opposite his desk. Everyone wanted a piece of that trophy, something to do with it, anything at all. People came out of the woodwork just to get near it, or near the players who'd won it. Grant Carter understood that. There was something that trophy represented that money could not buy. It was something that had to do with the desire for greatness, that feeble human attempt at immortality.

  But there was something about his daughter's request that was more immediate and important than all that. Rizzo was asking a favor of him, but not in a way that suggested he was owed anything. That was good. Carter knew who Rizzo was, and he'd spent more than a few moments worrying that Rizzo might make a demand for reciprocation. Carter had wondered to himself how far he would go to ensure Rizzo maintained his hold over Morgan Lloyd until he could get his empire back into the black. Now it was apparent that he needn't answer that question. Rizzo, whether it was because he hadn't really done that much to put Lloyd at bay or because he'd simply done it to impress Camille, was obviously not going to call in his favor.

  "Daddy?"

  Camille's voice roused Carter from his reverie.

  "Oh, of course, Camille," he said. That's no problem. I'll give you to Annette and she'll line it up for you. Tell her she can leave the pass for Tony's friend."

  Thanks, Dad," Camille said. "I'll let you go."

  Grant Carter's gaze returned to the trophy his team had won for him. He grinned. Rizzo was the one complication in his life lately that had bothered him the most. Maybe Rizzo wasn't such a tough guy after all. Carter knew he was bad. That much he'd been able to find out. But like much of even the worst human element, Rizzo knew better than to cross the lines of wealth and social level and tamper with someone as important as Grant Carter.

  Chapter 24

  That evening Cook rented a car without telling anyone. He had a ready supply of cash that he had to account for, but he could keep his expenditures under wraps until a final accounting at the end of the year. Everything he planned on doing now outside the office would be kept to himself. He would, of course, keep a careful record of his activities and be able to explain his secrecy later because of his, and others', strong suspicions that someone, somewhere was giving up information that was finding its way back to the Mondolffi crime family.

  After reading some stories to Natasha and putting her to bed, Cook gave his sullen aunt a nod.

  "Work," he said as an explanation for his departure and his shabby dress. Cook wore an old pair of gray slacks and a black T-shirt covered by a ratty gray hooded sweatshirt. On his feet were black high-top sneakers that had also seen better days. The only thing that could give away the fact that he was an agent was the bulge from the Glock that was strapped under his arm. Esther uttered one humph and turned her attention back to the TV. Cook chuckled the whole way down the street to his car. Just wait until she learned of his new schedule. Esther would have more than a humph for him then, but they'd get by. One thing Cook knew about Esther, as tough as her exterior was, deep down she loved him almost as much as Natasha. She'd simply had a difficult life, and she felt she best served him by keeping him on his toes.

  Cook drove uptown with the flow of traffic, letting the yellow cabs scream by and around him without getting perturbed. When he reached Rizzo's building, he took the next right and drove across town until he found a spot to park. He walked back through the New York night, which was alive with lights and noise and people, to the garage of Rizzo's building. The garage was a yawning cave in the solid rock slabs of high-rise buildings and regal town houses that lined the street. Cook knew that at night only one attendant would be on duty, so he found a dark corner between some buildings across the street and waited about fifteen minutes before a car finally pulled off Fifth Avenue and turned into the garage.

  Cook darted out of the shadows and walked halfway down the ramp. He finally heard the door slam shut and the car go back into gear. Cook carefully edged down the rest of the ramp. While the attendant backed the car into its spot, Cook eased himself down behind the first row of vehicles. After a minute the attendant whistled back to his booth, kicked up his feet, and began flipping through the pages of a Penthouse magazine. Cook fished his way through the garage for an hour. Rizzo's car was not there. Cook had expected as much, and he hunkered down in a corne
r behind a Rolls Silver Spirit to wait.

  Every time Cook heard a car pull in, he peeked up through the window of the Rolls to see if it was Rizzo's Mercedes. As the night went on, Cook had less and less cause to look up. At midnight he fished a box of No-Doz from the pocket of his sweatshirt and popped two tablets. They kept him alert until two, when he hit another. The whole while Cook sat thinking. It was the idle time of a stakeout that reminded him of why he really needed to be out of the field. Much of an agent's time on the job, especially when surveillance of any kind was involved, was spent simply waiting.

  When you wait, there's nothing to do but think. And for Cook, whenever he had more than ten minutes to think, no matter what tricks he employed, his mind turned to Naomi. A shrink that he had gone to see immediately after her death had told him that one day he would think of her and be filled with warmth from the fond memories of the times they'd spent together. The shrink had said there would one day be no pain. Cook had come to doubt that shrink, and every shrink, in fact. For him, time to think meant inevitable pain. So Cook suffered.

  At three-thirteen, Rizzo pulled into the garage. He and Camille Carter got out and walked straight to the elevator without a word to the attendant or each other. Cook watched where the car was parked and humped over to it when the attendant was again ensconced in his booth. He took the homing disc Duffy had given him and stuck it up under the car's wheel well. This would make following Rizzo on his own possible. The only problem he'd have would be when Rizzo took a limousine somewhere, which he did three or four times a week. Rizzo didn't have his own limo, but he had an arrangement with a service that provided him with one on demand. Because the car was usually not the same, another disc would be pointless. Of course, a limo was a lot easier to tail than a Mercedes 500SL.

  When he'd finished, Cook simply stood up and walked out of the garage. The attendant didn't even notice him until he was almost halfway up the ramp.

  "Hey, man!" the attendant barked, not even bothering to get up from his seat within the safety of his booth. "You get your ass outta here!"

  Cook had the same thing in mind.

  Since his Wednesday encounter with Tony Rizzo and his thugs, Hunter had done nothing every night but toss and turn in bed. Rachel figured it was the pressure he was under from football. She could read the papers and their speculation that Hunter was a burned-out comet by virtue of his bad shoulder, or age, or lack of talent, or all three. A win on Sunday would go a long way toward silencing the critics. That was how Hunter explained his gloom.

  With the game looming like some Shakespearean specter, Hunter tried harder than ever to prepare. He watched so much Detroit game film he saw it whenever he closed his eyes. He balanced the fine line between practicing enough to be ready for the game and resting his shoulder so it would allow him to throw well. He kept pumping in the Butazolidin and got a cortisone shot in the bad joint on Friday.

  Saturday night the team stayed at the Meadowlands Marriott near the stadium. Hunter was determined to get some sleep. Instead of counting sheep, he drank four cold Rolling Rocks with Bert, then slugged down two Halcyons. Twenty minutes later, Bert and Hunter were lying in their respective beds under the flimsy hotel covers talking of nothing other than the game. Hunter, nervous that even drugs couldn't suppress his anxieties, began to finally feel himself float. As he drifted off, images of the Lions defense turned slowly in his mind, and then nothing.

  Hunter woke from his deeply drugged sleep at eight o'clock on Sunday morning. The good feeling of finally having gotten some rest was almost instantly supplanted by the worry of what the day would hold for him. Every player was nervous on game day. Each wanted to do his best and perform in a way that would help the team win.

  Hunter had more to think about than most players even on a normal Sunday. He had to know not only the responsibility of every player on his own offense, from the offensive linemen's calls to the wide receivers' pass routes, but he had to know what everyone on the opposing team was doing, or likely to do. The opposition's formation determined the weakness in their defense. Hunter needed to recognize the subtle signs that told him what their play was in the few seconds he had before the ball was snapped. If he saw that the play called in the huddle was running or throwing directly into the other team's strength, he would call at the line, changing the play to something entirely different.

  All that now was coupled with a strategy within his strategy to win the game. The inner strategy was to make sure the Titans didn't beat the Lions by more than a touchdown, thereby placating Rizzo and hopefully making him go away. Hunter didn't like it, but morally he could rationalize what he was going to do because his intent was still to lead his team to victory. That was his main responsibility on Sunday, and if he had to shave a few points in the process, no one would really be the worse for wear.

  Without getting out of bed, Hunter reached over to the night stand and grabbed the phone. He dialed home, and Rachel answered on the first ring.

  "How did you sleep?" she asked, not even trying to hide her concern.

  "Awesome," he replied.

  "Oh, good," she said. "Did you have to take those pills?"

  "Yeah," Hunter said, "and I'm damn glad I did. I was a wreck."

  "Well," she said, "you needed the rest, that's for sure."

  "So you're not going to give me any grief about the Halcyon, huh?"

  "Oh, come on," she said, "I understand what you're going through, Hunter. I know how the media affects you no matter what you say. I just don't like to see them pumping that Butazolidin into you and those cortisone shots. If you need some Halcyon to get some rest, well . . . hey, even Bush used to take it."

  "Now you're comparing me to a Republican," Hunter said. "You must be really pissed."

  They had a small laugh, then went through their weekly game-day routine of questions that they both knew the answers to: "How's Sara?" "Fine." and "You going to eat now?" "Yes, as soon as Bert gets his ass out of the shower."

  Bert finally did get out of the shower, and Hunter said good-bye to Rachel. The two of them headed down to the ground floor, where one of the banquet rooms retained an elaborate pre-game meal for the Titans. They didn't talk. They didn't have to. Both were thinking about the game, their assignments, and what they would have to do if they were going to go to bed that night and consider it a success. Hunter took a pile of eggs, then shoveled on two baked potatoes with his fork, added a couple of spoonfuls of cottage cheese, and smashed it all together to come up with what he claimed to anyone who'd listen was the perfect pre-game concoction.

  Bert was more of a traditional eater. He claimed he needed breakfast and lunch since he wouldn't get to eat again until that evening. He started out with pancakes and bacon drowned in syrup and then got a clean plate for his filet and baked potato with sour cream. Hunter had once tried to warn his friend that the protein and fats he was ingesting could never convert into energy in time for the game and would only serve to slow him down. Hunter should have known better. The food an athlete eats before a contest is as personal as religion, and like religion, it should not be talked about among friends who want to stay that way.

  Across the Hudson River, Cook sat in his maroon Dodge Dynasty with a thermos of coffee, a bag of bagels, and a tub of vegetable cream cheese. He was waiting outside on a corner of Fifth Avenue where he could see both the front entrance to Rizzo's building and the yawning darkness of the parking garage. Today he looked like the quintessential FBI agent with a dark suit, dark de, and Ray-Bans. It was a beautiful day. Cook couldn't help thinking of the things he could be doing with Natasha. It had been a real temptation to take the day off. Only his dedication to a greater purpose had kept him from a drive to Jones Beach, out on Long Island. Natasha loved the beach. Cook could have used a day of rest, too. He'd followed Rizzo around the Manhattan nightclub scene until the wee hours of the morning and gotten home smelling of smoke and sticking to his clothes with sweat.

  But Cook knew that to do it right
, he needed to dog Tony Rizzo's every move. It was like fishing. You can't see underneath the surface of the water. You don't know when you're going to get a bite. It can happen any time, or not at all. But one thing was for sure. No one ever caught one when their line wasn't in the water. That's how Cook felt right now, like his line was in the water, but there were no bites.

  When Rizzo did come out of the garage in the red Mercedes, Camille was right beside him. It wasn't hard for Cook to follow the two of them downtown, through the Lincoln Tunnel, and finally to the Meadowlands, where a crowd was building for the season opener between the Titans and the Lions.

  Cook was stopped as he tried to follow Rizzo past a line of cones that blocked most cars from the lots right next to the stadium.

  "I'm following them," Cook said to the attendant, a big, burly woman in a Titans cap who was missing a front tooth.

  "You ain't following anybody, mister, unless you got a gold pass," she said in a disgusted tone.

  Cook sighed and pulled out his badge.

  'This good enough for you?" Cook said as he watched Rizzo's car actually disappear into the bus tunnel that went under the stadium.

  "Uh-uh, buddy," she said in the voice of the obtuse drone that she was.

  Cook was tired of this New York routine of even the lowest people on the totem pole asserting their authority with a joyful vengeance. Down South, an FBI badge meant get the hell out of the way. He put the car in gear and drove over the cones. The woman began shouting insanely into her walkie-talkie, and she chugged after his car as fast as her beefy frame would allow. Cook glanced back through the rearview mirror and smiled at the big lady's face, which was comically distorted with anger. The fatty handles that hung over the side of her pants shook wildly as she ran.

  Cook buzzed past another set of guards, laughing out loud now, and drove straight into the tunnel where Rizzo and Camille had disappeared. A squad car pulled up with its lights flashing before he could get through. When he reached for his wallet, the two New Jersey state troopers pulled their guns on him.