The Draft (22 page)

“What kind of money are we talking about here?” Macintosh had asked.

“We're talking about twenty thousand dollars, cash.”

Macintosh was sure his heart had skipped a beat.

Twenty thousand in cash. That's more money than I've ever had in my life.

His first instinct was to jump on it, reel it in before it got away like that once-in-a-lifetime tuna. Then a second instinct overpowered it—an instinct evolved from watching hustlers like Peter Connally work their magic day in and day out. What was it Connally always said? The first offer should be rejected no matter how generous?

“Twenty thousand?!” he said, hoping the laugh didn't sound too snotty. He wanted to seem genuinely offended, but not dismissive. Then a semicomforting thought struck him—he pretty much had Cavanaugh by the balls already because Cavanaugh had no one else to turn to. It was him or no one. Macintosh already
knew
his intentions. He was the only game in town. That put him in a sweet position indeed.

“Okay, okay,” Cavanaugh replied, sounding like someone who'd been caught in a lie. “Forty thousand. But that's it.”

“Fifty,” Macintosh said coolly.

“Done,” Cavanaugh snapped, and Macintosh realize too late he could have gotten more. When you were talking about a player who'd be worth millions, fifty thousand bucks was negligible.

Macintosh smiled anyway. “Great. So, uh, how is payment made? I assume I won't receive a check?”

“No, the money will be delivered to your door. Don't worry about how. It'll get there. In fact, to show my good faith, I'll get the first half to you later this week.”

And he did—a few days later Macintosh came home to find a small brown package, the size and shape of a brick, lying outside the door of his apartment. His name and address were on it, but there were no stamps, postmarks, or other evidence it had been delivered through any of the conventional delivery systems. He thought about asking one of his neighbors if they'd seen anybody, then thought better of it.

He unwrapped the box on the kitchen counter, amid a shaft of spring sunlight that, ironically, gave him the look of a holy figure, and found a condensed stack of hundred-dollar bills in a small cardboard box with a lid. He was now an official mole. He felt a faint sensation of self-loathing, but ignored it until it went away. That was to be expected. Nothing a few nights on the town couldn't cure.

Cavanaugh wanted regular calls every time something happened involving the package Jon was building for Skip Henderson. Good, bad, or otherwise, he wanted the details. He suggested—and Macintosh had already figured this out on his own—that he should only use his personal cell phone. Using one of the office phones was flat-out stupid. Teams sometimes randomly tapped their lines during security sweeps. And it was easy to trace where outgoing calls went; you simply had to review the monthly bill. There was a very good chance a series of regular phone calls from Robert Macintosh to the general manager of a division rival would arouse suspicion.

He knew exactly where to search for the information Cavanaugh wanted. Jon kept updated printouts of the spreadsheets in the top left drawer of his desk. And the desk was rarely locked—one of Jon's many moronic “open-door policies” that was meant to create an atmosphere of fuzzy warmth throughout the organization.
See?
Macintosh thought.
The nice guys really do finish last.

He opened the drawer, and the sheaf of printouts was sitting on top, held together by a small binder clip. He read through everything until the details were burned into memory. Then he replaced the pages and left. No one saw him because no one was around.

It was a clean getaway.

*   *   *

Billie Jo Rydell would be twenty-four in June and she already had three children, all from different men. The youngest of the three, a little boy she named LaVelle, was the spitting image of his father. Unfortunately, that man, a part-time auto mechanic and full-time drunk, had packed his bags and left three weeks earlier.

Billie Jo had worked as a domestic cleaning woman since she was eighteen. She had no college education and no high school diploma. She had taken her GED test once and failed, and was planning on trying it again, sooner or later. The last seven months of her professional life were spent with the White Glove Service, an ultra-exclusive East Coast franchise that catered only to the wealthy. They told their clients they ran background checks on all their employees, but they only really did this if a potential hire was a complete stranger. Billie Jo knew one of their other maids, so they didn't bother with her. She was willing to work cheap, too, and the owner of White Glove cherished people who worked cheap.

In her company uniform—light pink with a white apron front—she went about her weekly chores in the house of Darryl Bailey, star wide receiver for the Baltimore Ravens, dusting and polishing thousands of dollars' worth of furniture. It occurred to her many times that she would never own furniture like this, never even come within a thousand light years of owning such a home. The art that hung on the walls, the jewelry that lay on the dressers; the only way she would ever intermingle with this standard of living was to do exactly what she was doing now—be a servant. The bitterness of this harsh reality always lay just under the surface. She had learned through the years to conceal it, but was unable to erase it.

Her routine had always been the same—start at the top and work your way down. She would do an attic on special request (White Glove rarely said no to anything—it wasn't good for business), but on an ordinary day she began on the second floor. In Bailey's house the second floor constituted an office, a living room, two spare bedrooms, and a full bath. It was the easiest part of the job because Bailey never went up there, and that bitch girlfriend of his, Bernadette, only used the office.

Nevertheless, she dusted and polished everything, opened the windows to circulate fresh air, changed all the sheets, and emptied all the wastebaskets. She straightened everything that was on the desk in the office but rearranged nothing. She had learned long ago that offices were minefields. You had to straighten up but not rearrange. If a customer couldn't find something because you moved it, you'd get heat for it. One young and overzealous girl a few years back had ignored this cardinal rule and reorganized the home office of a Smith Barney VP. White Glove's owner, a millionaire in her own right, spent half an hour apologizing over the phone, then invested another sixty seconds in the girl's termination. Reputation was everything.

The first floor was a little harder than the second. This was where the couple spent most of their time. They weren't slobs—unlike some of her customers—but they had their quirks. Bailey worked out every morning and usually left his sweat-soaked clothes in a separate hamper in the bedroom closet. It was air-sealed so the odor wouldn't drift through the house, but Billie Jo had to open it sooner or later, and when she did a stench drifted out that was so raunchy it made her eyes water. Discreet or not, she always held her breath as she dumped the load into the washing machine. Sometimes even that didn't help.

When she was done there she went into the basement. There were five rooms, all with carpeting and sheet rock, and all painted and decorated. The main attraction was the game room, featuring a marble pool table, a bank of vintage video games, a poker table, and a bar, which was always fully stocked.

She lugged a bag of laundry into the utility room and dropped it in front of the washing machine, then paused to catch her breath. A bead of perspiration ran from her forehead into her eye, stinging like mad. She lifted the washer lid, took a deep breath and held it, then dumped the clothes in.

As she turned to leave, something caught her attention. She looked up and saw that one of the ceiling tiles was slightly out of place. She noticed things like this—whether something was a little crooked or had been moved from a spot where it usually was.

Her first instinct was to simply move it back. A folding stepladder was stored nearby, in the narrow gap between the supply cabinet and the wall. As soon as she touched the tile, she heard something roll off it.

Something's up there.

Neither of her clients was home right now, and yet she took a moment to peer out the doorway and make sure no one was there. She listened hard but didn't hear anything. She went back up the stepladder and carefully moved the tile aside. She wasn't tall enough to actually see what was there, but she could feel around. Her fingers came across a small, cylindrical object. When she brought the empty cortisone bottle down, she let out a tiny gasp. Further exploration garnered the brown bag containing the rest of the injections.

She didn't know much about much, but she knew one thing—professional athletes weren't supposed to use drugs. They got in trouble. Sometimes she heard stories about guys getting fined. She also remembered something about baseball players testifying before some government committee about using steroids. She wasn't sure if cortisone was a steroid, but she was pretty sure it was illegal one way or the other. If it wasn't, Bailey wouldn't be hiding it.

She knew she was on to something.

*   *   *

When Raymond Coolidge was upset, he threw balls around the field at Washington High by himself. The workout helped diminish his anger and give him time to think.

He would emulate a game situation, starting in a crouched position and calling signals. Then he'd try to lay the ball into the hands of an imaginary receiver. He had a good imagination—clear and sharp—and sometimes lost himself in the dream. He could hear the crowd, the band, the slap of the pads.

His old playbook lay nearby. He would run the common designs from memory, then try some of the other schemes just to keep up on them. He found the memorization easy and rarely needed the book. He'd created a few plays of his own but never showed them to anyone. All part of the secrecy he had developed, the same as the endless hours of game tape he watched—studying himself, studying his opponents, studying pros—and the books he read. He was eternally preparing for a career that a big part of him didn't want.

The imaginary receiver started on the left and ran fifteen yards, then cut inside to receive a pass over the middle. A dangerous play, Raymond knew. He'd have to get the ball to him quickly. No tossing or lobbing—it had to be a laser beam or the cornerbacks would catch up to him and slam him like a doll. Raymond took two steps and raised the ball. Then, back in reality, he spotted someone sitting on the warped and rotting bleachers and turned. The dream game dissipated.

At first he thought it was Pearly. Then he recognized his father's slim figure. The two men stared at each other, the April wind bending the grass between them. Then Raymond started toward the rusting fence, the ball still in hand.

“Dad?”

“Hiya, son.”

Raymond managed a tiny smile. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm watching you. You know you hold it too high when you throw the long ones? That makes it harder to get good distance. Hold it back a little farther instead. You'll have to work on your control afterward, but it'll be worth it.”

“Oh, okay.” That's the first time in years he's given me playing advice.

“I had the same trouble early on.”

“You did?”

“That's right. Actually, I wasn't even that good in college. I sat on the bench for the first two years. I never thought I'd have a chance. I had to work on my mechanics like crazy. It took most of those two years just to
un
learn the bad habits I picked up in high school.”

“Wow, I didn't know that.”

“It's all true. Anyway, you got a minute?”

“Sure.”

Quincy patted the wood. “Come on up here. I want to talk to you about something.”

Ray hurdled the fence and sat down. The waning afternoon sunlight complemented the poignant father-and-son picture.

“Someone came to see me the other day.”

“Who?”

“Your Uncle Pearly.”

Raymond began spinning the ball. “Oh yeah? What'd he want?”

“He wanted to talk to me about you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. He told me he contacted an agent.”

Raymond's smile faded. “Yes, he did.”

“He said this agent thinks you might be good enough to play in the pros.”

“That's what he said.”

“But you don't want to play in the pros.”

The young man shook his head defiantly. “No.”

“Why not?” Quincy waited only a few seconds before adding, “Is it because of what happened to me?”

“Well … yeah. Of course”

Quincy studied his son's face—the tight jaw, the impassive eyes—then turned back to the field.

“Pearly said you walked out on him, too.”

“Well … yeah, I did. But—”

Quincy put his hand up. “I didn't ask for an explanation, did I?”

“No, sir.” It was almost a whisper.

“You're not in trouble, son. I'm not mad at you.”

“Dad, how can I play for a league that—”

“Raymond, Pearly was right—you don't know everything. You only know the parts of the story. The parts that … well, that I wanted you to know about.”

“What?”

“Look, I was young and stupid back then. I wanted someone to be mad with me. Everyone else knew the whole story—Pearly, your mama, some people in the league. A lot of people knew.” He turned away and added, “It's a miracle the press never found out.”

“So … all this time…”

“No, I never lied to you. What I told you was the truth,” Quincy said, then broke away from his beloved son's adoring eyes and, with all the courage he could muster, added, “It just wasn't the whole truth.”

Raymond stared at his father for what seemed like a long time. In that brief span he decided he already forgave him.