Hide and Seek (11 page)
“Did you forget I was with you in there? You did, didn’t you, Will? You bastard!”
Will looked at the slender, dark-haired woman who was holding on to his arm as he left the concert hall. He had forgotten about her—hadn’t a clue who the hell the beautiful woman behind the dark glasses was. Ah, the werewolf strikes again!
She was stunning, but they all were. Model? Actress? Would-be-actress? Shopgirl? Where the hell had he met her? Christ, this was embarrassing—even for him it was a new low.
“So, how long have you been getting this royally fucked-up on coke? You have, haven’t you? Can you play like this?”
Ahhh
, Will sighed with relief.
Reporter!
Now he remembered who the hell she was. She was the
Times
. She wanted to do a piece on him. He wanted a piece of her. Fair trade.
He recovered his poise, and immediately went into one of his best Prince Charming acts. He could, he knew, fool the pants off any of them. Even a
Times
reporter.
“No, it wasn’t drugs, Cynthia,” he said.
Cynthia Miller! That was her name
. He was so proud of himself. “I love her songs. I really do.”
“So you said on the way over. Your car is full of her tapes.”
“Her music is so damn real, comes right out of her life,” Will continued. “Do you like it much yourself?”
“As I told you,
on the way over
, I do like her music, indeed. I also enjoyed the concert, but maybe not as much as you did.”
Will pecked her on the cheek—gently, very chastely. “Now what shall we do?” he asked.
Careful, Will. She’s a reporter
.
Cynthia Miller smiled a sly grin. “I’d like to hear more about the Blond Arrow,” she said. She was typical of most reporters, an incredible cynic, a romantic gone bad.
“Would you like to see it?” Will teased. He added a twinkling smile.
He knew that she did. All of them did—except maybe one.
Maggie Bradford! That’s who he wanted, he needed—
a real person to understand and challenge him
.
T
HE DOORBELL RANG, and Will stopped reading the morning newspaper. He peered out the window. A showy, silver-blue Rolls-Royce was parked in his driveway. He could hear his maid greeting the new-comer, then footsteps approaching the living room.
“Mr. Shepherd, Mr. Lawrence.”
At the entrance stood a smiling, sandy-haired man, perhaps ten years older than Will. Will knew who Winifred “Winnie” Lawrence was. The man was a major force behind the development of soccer in the United States, a man determined to bring the beauty and grace of this refined sport to a nation overdosed on American football mayhem. Lawrence was a lawyer, an agent, but most of all, a hustler par excellence.
Will waited in his chair until Lawrence had entered the room; then he got up slowly, uncoiling as though from a nap, and shook hands with the American. Like so many people from his country,
their
country, Lawrence skipped preamble and pretense, and got right into it. Cut to the chase.
“Tell me, Will, why do you think the Germans remain so powerful a threat to win the Cup?” Lawrence said, his smile seemingly
pasted
across his face. “Year after year, no matter their personnel, they seem to have a powerhouse team.”
It was actually a question Will had often asked himself. “Discipline, I suppose,” he said. “It’s more their team style than any individual, and that makes them strong.”
Lawrence beamed, reveling in the obvious, as Americans so often do. “It’s a style I’ve incorporated into the American team. But we need world-class individuals as well. We need a scorer, a striker.”
“I figured that’s why you came here.”
“Yes, that’s right. I’ve come to persuade you to play for the United States. I will not leave your house until I do.”
Will laughed at the idea, not to mention Lawrence’s gall. “It’ll take some doing. There’s no way America can compete, with or without me. Why should I do all that training just to go out in the qualifying rounds? What am I too dim to see?”
Lawrence reached into a stuffed briefcase and withdrew a computer sheet, spreading it out on the living room table. The two men bent over it.
“Look here, Will. Suspend your disbelief for just a few moments.
Look
. CONCACAF. Zone Norte. Zone Centro. Zone del Caribe. The official schedule for the American team in the North Zone qualifiers.”
“So what?”
“Don’t you see? Let me help you then. The Americans don’t have to beat anybody worthwhile. Not until they’re into the final twenty-four.”
Will laughed again. He enjoyed Lawrence’s first-class act, but this was simply too much. “Maybe you haven’t heard, Mr. Lawrence,
Winnie
, but the American team isn’t considered anybody either. Any national team will be absolutely thrilled to play the United States. They’d think the game would be a complete walkover.”
“And that’s to our advantage!” Lawrence put his arm around Will’s shoulder. Actually, he was rather a good salesman, the great American huckster. Very compelling in his way. “We’ll have the benefit of
surprise
. What if I tell you that Wolf Obermeier has agreed to coach the American team?”
Obermeier had coached championship teams in his native Germany and in Argentina. He had the reputation of having one of the most brilliant minds in football—and the harshest tongue.
“I’d be somewhat impressed,” Will granted. “At least now you’ve gotten my attention. Tell me more, Mr. Lawrence. Maybe I need a challenge right now.”
“Or a crowning achievement?” the American said, and grinned.
“
T
RY TO IMAGINE the World Series, the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, and the Democratic and Republican Conventions all rolled into one great event,” wrote Mickey Trevor Jr. in the popular American magazine
Sports Illustrated
.
Then you have some small idea of the power and glory of the World Cup.
Next imagine Rio de Janeiro, where soccer may be more important than sex and the samba, and the World Cup makes Mardi Gras seem like a Girl Scout jamboree.
That’s where the World Cup final will be played.
And now think of the two teams matched in that final: heavy favorite Brazil, three-time previous winner of the cup, whose lineage is as impressive as the New York Yankees—and upstart, unheralded, pipsqueak America, the miracle men in the red, white, and blue, whose rise from nonentity to heroic challenger has all the elements of a classic fairy tale—only, miraculously and unbelievably, it is true.
Folks, this here is a fairy story to rank with “The Lion King”! You may not have taken much notice when America quietly won the North Zone qualifying tournament, thus reaching the World Cup finals. It might have quickened your pulse a bit when our boys made it past the qualifying round, with only a loss to Germany to mar their record. Good for us, good for my kids, who love soccer because they play it in school, you probably figured, but that’s the end. It’s all over. And so you turned your attention back to the pennant races, and the wonderful baseball season of Barry Bonds, still a bit puzzled as to why the rest of the world takes soccer so damn seriously, and meanwhile, our team edged past Nigeria into the last eight.
But when the U.S. beat Italy—Italy!—in the quarterfinals (the score was 3–2, and each of the American goals was scored by America’s star of stars, Will Shepherd) and then edged Germany 2–11 in the semis, surely your attention returned, and by now if your temperature isn’t boiling, if your heart isn’t pounding, if you haven’t canceled all plans for Sunday night so you can stay home to watch the final, then you’re not an American, you don’t like sports—or you’re dead.
The American team has Will Shepherd and ten other guys who probably couldn’t make the starting lineups of any of the leading clubs in the competition.
But Shepherd. Ah, Shepherd!
Soccer is a team sport, but even Wolf Obermeier, the U.S.A. coach, admits that in this case Will Shepherd is the team. “Without Will, we wouldn’t have qualified,” Obermeier said. “With him—well, look where we are now. Look where we are.”
“Bravo! My congratulations to
Sports Illustrated!
Finally something of value, beyond their beloved swim-suit issue!”
Will finished the article and grunted with satisfaction. “Shepherd
is
the team,” he said. “Has a nice ring to it. Accurate reporting for a change too. Bravo!”
“I read it while you were asleep,” Victoria Lansdowne said. The leggy British actress was sprawled luxuriously on top of the covers. Her striking, cobalt-blue eyes admired the physique of the man she had met for the first time the evening before. The Blond Arrow. Right now, the most famous athlete in the world.
Despite the air-conditioning in the Rio Hilton, the suite was hot, and neither of them had put on any clothes after a long bout of sex. They looked every bit as good as their starry reputations suggested. The sheen of sweat glistened on their beautiful bodies.
“What did you think of it? Just another puff piece?”
“I think that if you play football as well as you do certain other things, you’ll beat the living doo-doo out of Brazil tomorrow.”
He smiled. “Satisfied, I take it.”
“Never. Not even close, sweet thing. I’m
insatiable
. Don’t
you
read the papers? My ‘string of lovers.’ ”
He looked at her full breasts, the slender, very tan legs that had spread for him so willingly, yet seemed to have a mind of their own. She reminded him of Vannie. Many of them did. Maybe that was why he was beginning to feel a touch angry at
vainglorious Victoria
.
“Want another go … on goal, so to speak?” Victoria had followed his gaze down and along her body. She reveled in the power she held over supposedly strong and powerful men. This one was different though. He was smarter than she’d expected him to be.
“I don’t think so. Maybe your
‘string’
has finally ended here,” he said, returning her dazzling smile.
“What’s the matter? No more arrows in our quiver? Are we fresh out of joy juice?”
Will fought down the rage, forcing himself to laugh.
“There’s a game tomorrow, a rather important game. Maybe you’ve heard? You say you read the papers, dear Vic.”
“And sweet Lambkins wants to get up for that, but not for me?”
“Don’t,” he said. He’d
warned
her at least.
“Don’t what?” she taunted him. “Tempt you?” She wet a finger with her tongue, and placed it between her legs. “If you can’t do it, I suppose I’ll have to do it myself. Now
here’s
a juicy picture for the tabloids.
Victoria does herself! Will not able?”
With a roar, Will was on her, all over her. Victoria
woofed
out air.
“Oh,” she gasped. “Oh God, that hurts. That
hurts
.” Victoria Lansdowne tried to push him off, but he pinned her hands to her sides. “Please, dear Jesus,
stop!
Please, please, I’m begging you, Will! Stop it. I’m serious, stop.”
But there was nothing that could stop the Blond Arrow.
O
N THE AFTERNOON of the World Cup final the heat soared to ninety-three degrees on the sugary, white sand beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema. For a while, it was a quiet day, a national holiday in celebration of the World Cup. Rich and poor alike rested, saving their energy for the most popular sporting event in the world.
Then, suddenly, day melted into swarming, jungle-hot night. All of Rio de Janeiro seemed to pour outdoors to witness, and participate in, the national game of “futebol.”
The wide avenues of the South American city became a raucous and dangerous carnival. Auto horns honked out
Bra-sil! Bra-sil!
Along the Avenida Brasil and Castello Branco, university students defiantly wrapped themselves in the national flag. All buses and taxis were decorated with bright-colored streamers. Women danced impromptu in the streets, blouses clinging to their breasts, skirts swirling like hoops.
By seven o’clock, the crowd had converged on Rio’s legendary Maracana Stadium, police letting no one in without a ticket, though hundreds eluded them and entered the stadium to find what sight lines they could.
Inside, a hundred thousand frenzied Cariocas, waving multicolored banners and placards proclaiming sports victory and social revolution, let out cheers in cadence with the rhythm of ten thousand samba drums, and
twice
that many boom boxes.
At the end of a rampway, standing with the rest of his team amid the deafening noise, Will
listened
.
He could hear his own heart beat against the walls of his chest. He could hear …
“Numero nueve … De America … Will … Shepherd!”
came from the loudspeaker.
There were drawn-out boos at the announcement, shouts of
palhaco
, “clown.” But even in Rio, there were cheers for Will Shepherd. Some in the crowd treasured artistry over partisanship, and Will’s achievements were art. A quartet of shirtless men ran out onto the field. Each had the numeral nine painted on his chest.
The cheers continued as Will raced onto the field, his fist held high above his flying blond curls. His head was filled with sound and images, fantasies and dreams. He could hardly breathe.
He felt The Thrill travel through every part of his body.
No one could stop him tonight.
He was going to make sports history in front of half the world. No one would ever forget him after this special night in Rio.
A
T 8:32, THE Colombian referee set the ball down on a bent tuft of grass.
Brazil versus America! Unthinkable, unpopular, impossible, and yet it was happening.
The World Cup final had begun!
Arturo Ribeiro, the mercurial nineteen-year-old Brazilian star, swept up the ball, passed it to a teammate in a play practiced for hours in the preceding months, and raced forward in a brilliant, weaving dance. The ball was sent back to him. His back to the goal, he cartwheeled and sent the ball flying toward the American net.
