The Draft (14 page)

“Well, perhaps we can do a
better
deal, Greg.”

“I'm sorry, I don't think that's possible.”

“You have no intention of helping me out here, do you?”

Another pause, and then, very quietly, “No, I don't.”

8

Jon was still behind
his desk two hours and four more fruitless phone calls later when he found Robert Macintosh leaning into his doorway, an eager look on his face.

Macintosh was invisible unless he wanted something. There were times when Jon didn't see him for weeks. He knew what Macintosh did, technically—he was an assistant in their marketing department. But whether he actually
did
anything related to marketing was another issue. He was almost ghostlike, a leftover from the previous regime who was harmless enough and, Jon believed, functional enough to be kept around. Whether he had any value beyond that, however, was still up for debate.

“Robert, what can I do for you?”

“Do you have a minute? Can I talk to you about something?”

“Sure, come on in and have a seat.”

“Thanks.”

Macintosh stepped in and, avoiding direct eye contact, made a beeline for one of the chairs. He was slim and good-looking, with dark hair and a fresh, boyish face. He wore plastic-rimmed glasses that made him look more like someone sitting outside a Paris café or wandering through an art museum than the front office of a football team. Otherwise he fit the image pretty well—the cotton trousers, the Polo button-down, the conservative haircut. Neat as a pin, as if he mother still dressed him every morning. In fact he dressed and groomed himself as he had done for the last thirty odd years, and he took great pains to make sure he always looked perfect.

Jon stood and stretched. “So what's up?”

“I, um … I heard Keith Armstrong got that communications position.”

“Yes, I gave it to him today.”

Macintosh nodded, looked around the room. He was hunched forward, his elbows on the armrests and his hands laced together.

“Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason.” Macintosh laughed quietly. “I was kind of hoping for that spot myself, but that's how it goes. Keith's a good guy.”

“Yes,” Jon said, suddenly hoping there was a larger, more meaningful reason for this interruption than to praise the promotion of Keith Armstrong. “He's a very good guy.”

Macintosh kept nodding. “There's one other position still open, I believe—that management spot in personnel. If it's okay with you, I'd like to be considered for that, too. I've been here eight years now and—”

“I'm sorry, Robert, but we're going to find someone outside for that job.”

Macintosh turned, locking his eyes onto Jon's. “Outside?”

“Yeah. We want someone fresh, maybe even a little naive. Someone with new ideas, not someone stale. Someone who
hasn't
been here before.”

“But I—”

“In fact I think we've already found someone. We'll be bringing him in one more time next week,” Jon added quickly to avoid a bickering match about it.

Macintosh opened his mouth to say something more, then closed it again and went back to his affable, patronizing nods.

“I see, I see,” Macintosh said. Then, abruptly, he stood and said, “Well, thanks very much for sparing me a few moments. I appreciate it.”

“Sure. I'm sorry I couldn't give you better news. If something else opens up in the future and you're interested, let me know well ahead of time.”

“I will, I definitely will. Thanks.”

Macintosh turned and went out.

*   *   *

He waited until Jon went out for lunch, then ventured back to the top floor and found the sign he was hoping for—Peter Connally's door was open just a few inches. It was common knowledge around the Raven offices that this meant he was inside and available. Macintosh pushed it back gently and stuck his head in. Connally was behind his desk, turned sideways, reviewing some papers.

As always, Macintosh was surprised by what a
dump
Connally's office was. The furniture was worn, almost ratty, like stuff you'd find at a yard sale. The blinds hung crookedly. There were piles of papers on the desk, on the filing cabinets … everywhere. And the carpet looked as though it hadn't been vacuumed in months. Interestingly, however, there were no unpleasant odors. Connally appeared to be a clutterbug, but a hygienic clutterbug.

“Mr. Connally?”

“Yes?” He said it crisply, as if he'd known someone was there all along. He did not, however, stop reading.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Macintosh slipped inside and came forward, unsure if he should invite himself into a chair. There were three of them, but two were occupied by more papers and folders.

Connally solved the problem by saying, “Have a seat.” Then he muttered, “Christ, these fucking assholes,” and turned back, tossing the papers onto the desk in disgust. “All right, Macintosh, what can I do for you?”

The fact that Connally was the only one in the organization who never called him by his first name bothered Macintosh. He believed the formality was calculated to keep a distance between them, and this made him nervous. He'd had an easy, almost friendly relationship with the previous owner. This was by design. Schmoozing, he firmly believed, was integral to getting ahead in business. If you couldn't sidle up to the person who pulled the purse strings, you'd never go anywhere. And up to this point he did not feel he'd developed any warmth between himself and Peter Connally.

He leaned back and propped one leg on the knee of the other. He wanted to appear casual and chummy.

“I understand Jon Sabino gave Keith Armstrong that promotion in communications.”

“Yes, I believe that's correct.”

“Well, I'd like to be considered for the other position—the management job in personnel that Karen Dobler has now but will be vacating after she gets married next month.”

Macintosh was proud of the confident delivery. It was the voice of a man worthy of such a request.

But Connally wasn't buying it. He shook his head, smiled, and reached for another pile of papers. “No, no … I don't think that would work out.”

The quick dismissal was irritating. “You don't? Why not?”

“Because you're not a worker.” Connally said. He made it sound as though everyone in the organization already knew this. “Karen comes in early and leaves late. She works on Saturdays, sometimes Sundays. That's not your style.”

Macintosh didn't know how to respond. What rattled him the most was how accurately Connally had summed him up—and Connally barely noticed him most of the time! Between the Ravens and his numerous other business interests, he probably had between five hundred and a thousand employees. Yet he cut through the bullshit and squarely evaluated one tiny cog in the machine as if he'd been studying him for years.

The simple fact that Macintosh knew he wasn't deserving of the promotion, however, didn't stop him from arguing the point further.

“I work harder than you might think.”

“Okay, maybe you do, but you're still not on Karen's level. In fact, I'm not sure what level you're on at all.”

Macintosh didn't know what that meant, but he didn't like the sound of it.

“Every time I walk down the halls,” Connally continued, sifting through a sea of papers to figure out what to read next, “I see you leaning against someone's doorway, talking to them. That not only means you're not getting anything done, it means
they're
not getting anything done, either. So you're wasting two people's time. And you don't even talk about Ravens' issues. You talk about books, movies, music, that kind of shit.”

Macintosh's stomach tightened. How in the world did this guy who rarely saw him during the course of a day know all this? Did he have spies? Hidden cameras?

“I'll be honest with you. I've had moments where I thought about letting you go.”

Connally made eye contact—direct and unflinching—for the first time. Macintosh was as stiff as a cigar-store Indian. That famous Connally bluntness. Was this the lead-in to an employee termination? By coming in here today, did he inadvertently give Connally an opportunity he'd been waiting for?

Macintosh was too punch drunk at this point to offer even a feeble response.

“Now, if you'd kindly get back to your office and go do something of productive value, I'd appreciate it. I've got a lot to do.”

Macintosh would not remember rising from the chair and leaving. It was too dreamlike, too surreal. In fact he would not remember walking through the hallway and closing and locking his office door, either. His basic senses didn't really return until some hours later, by which time the humiliation had mellowed into something else.

*   *   *

Macintosh had never asked her where she learned to cook. They'd been together almost eight months now, and never once had he asked her.

It was an amazing meal—rolled breast of veal with roasted potatoes, a warm goat cheese salad, and a bottle of Vernaccia San Gimignano, one of the finest of all Tuscany white wines. She ate like this every night, he knew. She was an attorney, and not just any attorney—a corporate hawk in her fourth year at Henderson, Landers, and Flynn. Not a place for the faint of heart.

She hadn't said a word since they sat down. He watched her from his end of the long lacquered table; watched her without trying to
appear
as though he was watching her, as the city of Baltimore twinkled through the giant windows to his left. He didn't want to gawk, but it wasn't easy. She wasn't just beautiful, she was a goddamn knockout. Long black hair that hung straight down either side of her delicate face, small mouth, and the almond eyes of an A-list fashion model. He wondered again how he'd gotten so lucky. He wondered, but in truth he knew—he'd lied. When the key moments came, he'd lied. He'd lied about his importance to the team, about how much money he made, about the college he'd attended, everything. He was a good liar, and he wasn't afraid to make use of this talent.

She took another sip of the wine, carefully wiped her mouth, and replaced the linen napkin in her lap. Without looking up, she said, “So what happened with that promotion today? Did you get it?”

With the fork in midair, Macintosh froze. He'd hoped this subject wouldn't come up.

“They haven't ruled on it yet.”

She continued eating as if she hadn't heard him.

“What are you going to do if you don't get it?” she asked eventually.

“I'll get it,” he said.

“What if you don't?”

“Then I'll get something else.”

She went silent again, and he went back to watching her. She had the greatest poker face of anyone he'd ever seen. If there was anything going on behind those eyes, he couldn't sense it.

Abruptly she said, “I won't be around this weekend. We've got to go to the West Coast to see a client.”

Macintosh's stomach tightened. He knew what this meant—her boss, J. Ellis Northrup, had to see a client on the West Coast and wanted her to come with him. He'd been after her for ages. He was patient and calculating; he knew how to extract a woman from another man's grasp. He was richer, taller, leaner, better looking, and better educated than Macintosh could ever be; could ever even
lie
about being. They'd met once, at the firm's New Year's party just a few months ago. Northrup smiled, delivered a bone-crushing handshake, and studied his competition all night. As they were leaving, Macintosh caught one last glimpse of him from the corner of his eye. Northrup's expression seemed to indicate that he wasn't the least bit worried about whether or not he could pull Jenny Chandler away. This guy was ruthless, Macintosh thought. Made him feel like an amateur.

What unnerved Macintosh most was the realization that Jenny might not
mind
the idea of being taken by Northrup. It wasn't exactly a secret that she admired men of wealth, success, and power. Macintosh had to fake those things—Northrup actually had them. She never came out and said as much, but Macintosh was pretty certain she wasn't going to commit the rest of her life to a guy who trolled the lower ranks of life with the rest of the bottom feeders. She planned to move steadily upward, and if you couldn't help her, you wouldn't be allowed to stick around.

How much longer could he hold out? How much longer until the scales tipped in Northrup's favor? Was it already happening? Was the fact that he clearly wasn't going anywhere with the Ravens the deciding factor? He'd been with the team six years, and in that time he'd been given just one promotion—and that from Art Modell, the previous owner. Modell had promised him great things, and he had no doubt the old man would've kept those promises. But now.…

“Will you be gone long?” he asked. It sounded feeble and pathetic. The voice of a man who knows his wife is cheating on him but doesn't have the guts to confront her about it. He had a pretty good idea of what Jenny thought about people like that.

“About a week.”

Macintosh nodded, straightened up, tried to appear unconcerned. He wanted to be sentimental, wanted to say something nakedly human like, “Think about me while you're out there,” or “Try to miss me a little bit, because I'll be missing you,” but there wasn't room in their relationship for this kind of talk.

“Well, have a good time.”

She nodded, again without looking up.

The knot in Macintosh's stomach tightened even more.

Something in his professional life had to change, and fast.

*   *   *

Darryl Bailey built his personal gym in the basement of his Baltimore home. He wanted it there because it provided the kind of privacy he required during workouts. Other players he knew had theirs on the first floor, with French doors leading to sunny decks overlooking forested mountains or Olympic-size swimming pools. He would've found this distracting. There were two small windows in the foundation that could be opened inward to let in fresh air, but he'd had them covered with plywood and locked tight long ago.