She was, without a doubt, the most worthless, spineless, silliest excuse for a human being he'd ever met in his life.
At first he'd wondered if she might not be smarter than she let on, but now he knew she was dumber than she'd let on, a world-class bimbo who was ruining his football team.
If only she didn't have that drop-dead body. It was hard to ignore, even for someone like him, who'd seen just about everything a woman had to offer before he'd turned twenty-one. He knew the public thought life was one big orgy for professional football players, and they were pretty much right. Even now, when sex was fraught with danger, women lined up in hotel lobbies and stadium parking lots calling out to the players, flashing phone numbers written on their bare midriffs, sometimes flashing more.
He remembered his early playing days, when he'd picked up one, sometimes even two of them, and indulged in long, lost nights of Cutty and sex. He'd done things the rest of the male population had only dreamed about, but as the novelty had worn off, he'd begun to find something pathetic about those encounters. By the time he'd reached thirty, he'd replaced the football groupies with women who had more going for them than a hot body, and sex had once again been fun. Then he'd met Valerie and begun his current downward spiral. But that spiral was about to shift direction now that Sharon Anderson was in his life.
On Tuesday afternoon he'd managed to stop by the nursery school again to watch her with the kids and take her out for coffee after they'd left. She had some stains on her clothes that made him want to hug her: grape juice, paste, a streak of playground dirt. She was quiet and sweet, exactly what he wanted in a woman, which made his physical response to Phoebe Somerville even more aggravating. That female belonged in leather boots and a garter belt, as far away as possible from a bunch of innocent children.
Ronald propped his foot up on the bench and stared out at the practice field. "Phoebe keeps asking me to tell her who the best candidate for the GM job is."
Dan gave him a sharp gaze. "You've seen her?"
"We—uh—spend a lot of time together."
"Why?"
Ronald shrugged. "She trusts me."
Dan never gave anything away, and he concealed his uneasiness. Was Phoebe responsible for the changes in Ronald? "I guess I didn't realize that the two of you were friends."
"Not exactly friends." Ronald took a drag on his cigarette. "Women are funny about me. I guess Phoebe's no exception."
"What do you mean funny?"
"It's the Cruise thing. Most men don't notice, but women think I look like Tom Cruise."
Dan gave a snort of disgust. First Bobby Tom decided he looked like a movie star and now Ronald. But then, as he studied Ron more closely, he couldn't deny there was a vague resemblance.
"Yeah, I guess you do at that. I never noticed."
"It makes women feel as if they can trust me. Among other things." He took a deep drag on his cigarette. "It plays hell with your love life, I'll tell you that."
Dan's instincts for danger were as well developed as a battle-hardened soldier's, and the hair on the back of his neck prickled.
"How do you mean?" he said carefully.
"Women can be quite demanding."
"I suppose I never thought of you as that much of a hound with the ladies."
"I do all right." He threw down his cigarette and ground it out beneath his shoe. "I've got to go. Good luck with Phoebe. She's a real wildcat, and you're going to have your work cut out for you."
Dan had heard enough. Lashing out his arm, he caught Ronald by the shoulder, nearly knocking him off his feet. "Cut out the cute stuff. What the hell's going on?"
"What do you mean?"
"You and Phoebe."
"She's an unusual lady."
"What have you told her about the candidates for the GM job?"
Despite the grip Dan had on him, Ronald's gaze was steady and disconcertingly confident. "I'll tell you what I haven't told her. I haven't told her Andy Carruthers is the best man for the job."
"You know he is."
"Not if he can't handle Phoebe."
Dan slowly released him, and his voice was dangerously quiet. "Exactly what are you trying to say?"
"I'm saying I've got your butt in a sling, Dan, because right now the only person she trusts who knows a damned thing about football is me. And I got fired."
"You deserved to be fired! You weren't doing your job."
"I got her to sign those contracts the first day, didn't I? From what I hear, nobody else has been able to do that much."
"You had time after Bert died to prove yourself, and you blew it. Nothing got done."
"I didn't have the authority to act because Phoebe wasn't returning my phone calls." He lit a fresh cigarette and had the nerve to smile. "But I'll guarantee she returns them now."
Dan's temper ignited, and he grabbed a fistful of Ronald's fancy European lapels. "You son of a bitch. You're sleeping with her, aren't you?"
He had to give the kid credit. His complexion went a little pale, but he held his ground. "That's none of your business."
"No more games. What are you after?"
"You're not stupid, Dan. Figure it out for yourself."
"You're not getting your job back."
"Then you're in big trouble because Phoebe won't do anything unless I tell her to."
Dan clenched his teeth. "I ought to beat the shit out of you."
Ronald swallowed hard. "I don't think she'd like that. She's crazy about my face."
Dan thought furiously, but he could only come to one conclusion. Ronald had him pinned behind the line of scrimmage and nobody was open. It went against his grain to fall on the ball, but he didn't seem to have a choice. Gradually, he let go of the kid's shirt. "All right, you've got your job back for now. But you'd better control her or I'll have your ass hanging inside out from the yard markers. Do you understand me?"
Ronald flicked his cigarette away and then lifted the collar of his sport coat with his thumbs. "I'll think about it."
Dumbfounded, Dan watched him walk away.
By the time Ronald reached his car, he had sweated right through his jacket. Dan! He'd called the coach Dan and he was still alive. Oh, God. Oh, Lord.
Between the cigarettes and a rapid heartbeat, he'd begun to hyperventilate. At the same time, he'd never felt better in his life. Settling into the driver's seat, he grabbed the phone. After he fumbled with the buttons for a few moments, Phoebe came on the line.
He gasped for breath and pushed the videotape of Risky Business she had given him out from beneath his hip.
"We did it, Phoebe."
"You're kidding!" He could envision her wide, generous smile.
"I did exactly what you said." He gasped. "And it worked. Except now I think I'm having a heart attack."
"Take some deep breaths; I don't want to lose you now." She laughed. "I can't believe it."
"Neither can I." He was beginning to feel better. "Let me change my clothes and wash this grease out of my hair. Then I'll be in."
"It won't be a minute too soon. We've got a ton of work here, and I don't have the faintest idea what to do with any of it." There was a short pause. "Uh-oh. I've got to go. I hear an ominous set of footsteps coming my way."
Quickly hanging up, she grabbed her makeup mirror with a shaking hand and lifted her pinky to her eyebrow just as Dan exploded into her office. She caught a glimpse of her secretary's startled face behind him before he slammed the door.
Her office window faced the practice fields, so she should have been used to his aggression by now. She'd seen him throw clipboards and charge onto the field when he didn't like someone's performance. She'd watched him hurl his unprotected body at a player in full equipment to demonstrate some mysterious football move. And once, when she'd been in the office late and all the players had left, she'd watched him do laps around the track wearing a sweat-stained T-shirt and a pair of gray athletic shorts that had revealed a set of powerfully muscled legs.
 
; Swallowing hard, she gazed up at him innocently. "Oh, my. The big bad wolf just blew my door down. What did I do now?"
"You win."
"Goody. What's the prize?"
"Ronald." He grit his teeth. "I've decided I won't stand in your way if you want to hire him back."
"That's wonderful."
"Not from my viewpoint."
"Ron isn't quite the incompetent you seem to think he is."
"He's a weenie."
"Well, you're a hot dog, so the two of you should get along just fine."
He scowled, and then he let his eyes roam all over her with an insolence he had never before displayed. "Ronald sure figured out how to get what he wanted from you. But maybe there's something you should know. Smart businesswomen don't sleep with the men who work for them."
Even though she hadn't done anything wrong, the jab hurt, and she had to force herself to give him a silky smile. "Jealous I chose him instead of you?"
"Nope. I'm just afraid you'll move on to my players next."
She clenched her fists, but before she could respond he had stalked from her office.
Ray Hardesty stood in the shadows of the pines outside the cyclone fence and watched Dan Calebow stride back onto the practice field. Ray had to be at work soon, but he made no move to leave. Instead, he coughed and lit another cigarette, disturbing the butts already on the ground as he shifted his feet. Some of them were fresh, but others had disintegrated in last week's thunderstorms, leaving behind only the swollen, yellowed filters.
Every day he told himself he wasn't going to come here again, but he came back all the same. And every day when his wife asked him where he was going, he said True Value. He never came home with any hardware, but she kept on asking. It had gotten so he could barely stand the sight of her.
Ray rubbed the back of his hand over his stubbly jaw and wasn't surprised when he felt nothing. The morning the police had come to the house to notify him that Ray Junior had died in a car crash, he'd stopped being able to tell the difference between hot and cold. His wife said it was temporary, but Ray knew it wasn't, the same way he knew he'd never be able to watch his son play football for the Stars again. Ever since that morning, his senses had been confused. He'd watch television for hours only to realize he'd never turned up the volume. He'd pour salt into his coffee instead of sugar and not notice the taste until his mug was nearly empty.
Nothing was right any more. He'd been a big shot when Ray Junior was playing for the Stars. The guys he worked with, his neighbors, the boys at the bar, everybody had treated him with respect. Now they looked at him with pity. Now he was nothing, and it was all Calebow's fault. If Ray Junior hadn't been so upset about getting cut by the Stars, he wouldn't have driven through that guardrail. Because of Calebow, Ray Senior couldn't hold his head up any longer.
For months Ray Junior had been telling him how Calebow had it in for him, accusing him of drinking too much and being some kind of goddamn druggie just because he took a few steroids like everybody else in the NFL. Maybe Ray Junior had been a little wild, but that's what had made him a great player. He sure as hell hadn't been any goddamn druggie. Hale Brewster, the Stars' former coach, had never complained. It was only when Brewster had been fired and Calebow had taken over that the trouble started.
Everybody had always commented on how much he and his son looked alike. Ray Junior'd also had a misshapen, prizefighter's face, with a big nose, small eyes, and bushy brows. But his son hadn't lived long enough to get thick around the waist, and there hadn't been any gray in his hair when they'd buried him.
Ray Senior's life had been filled with disappointments. He thought about how he wanted to be a cop, but when he'd applied, it seemed like they wouldn't take anybody but niggers. He'd wanted to marry a beautiful woman, but he'd ended up with Ellen instead. At first even Ray Junior had been a disappointment. But his old man had toughened him up, and by the kid's senior year in high school, Ray had felt like a king as he sat in the stands and watched his boy play ball.
Now he was a nobody again.
He began to cough and it took him almost a minute to get the spasms under control. The doctors had told him a year ago to stop smoking because of his bad heart and the trouble with his lungs. They hadn't come right out and told him he was dying, but he knew it anyway, and he didn't much care anymore. All he cared about was getting even with Dan Calebow.
Ray Senior relished every Stars' loss because it proved the team wasn't worth shit without his kid. He had made up his mind that he was going to stay alive until the day everybody knew what a mistake that bastard had made by cutting Ray Junior. He was going to stay alive until the day Calebow had to eat the dirt of what he had done.
The smell of scotch and expensive cigars enveloped Phoebe as she entered the owner's skybox the following Sunday. She was doing what she had sworn she wouldn't—attend a football game—but Ron had convinced her that the owner of the Stars couldn't miss the opening game of the regular season.
The hexagonal Midwest Sports Dome had actually been constructed in an abandoned gravel quarry that sat at the center of a hundred acres of land just north of the Tollway. When the Stars weren't playing, the distinctive glass and steel dome was home to everything from religious crusades to tractor pulls. It had banquet facilities, an elegant restaurant, and seats for eighty-five thousand people.
"This is an expensive piece of real estate," Phoebe murmured to Ron as she took in the owner's sky box with its two television sets and front wall of windows looking down on the field. She had learned that skyboxes in the Midwest Sports Dome were leased for eighty thousand dollars a year.
"Skyboxes are one of the few profit items we have in that miserable stadium contract Bert signed," Ron said as he closed the door behind them. "This is actually two units turned into one."
She gazed through the cigar smoke at the luxurious gold and blue decor: thick pile carpeting, comfortable lounge chairs, a well-stocked mahogany bar. There were nine or ten men present, either cronies of her father's or owners of the fifteen percent of the Stars that Bert had sold several years ago when he'd needed to raise money.
"Ron, do you notice anything out of place here?"
"What do you mean?"
"Me. I'm the only woman. Don't any of these men have wives?"
"Bert didn't allow women in the owner's box during games." Mischievous lights twinkled in his eyes. "Too much chatter."
"You're kidding."
"The wives have box seats outside. It's not an unknown practice in the NFL."
"The boys' club."
"Exactly."
An overweight man she vaguely remembered having met at her father's funeral came toward her, his eyes bulging slightly as he stared at her. She was wearing what Simone called her "carwash" dress because the clingy pink sheath was slit into wide ribbons from a point well above her knee to the mid-calf hem. With every step she took, her legs played peek-a-boo with the hot pink ribbons, while the sleeveless scoop-necked bodice clung to her breasts. The man held a cut glass tumbler filled to the brim with liquor, and his effusive greeting made her suspect it wasn't his first.
"I hope you're going to bring us good luck, little lady."
He ogled her breasts. "We had a rough season last year, and a few of us aren't sure Calebow's the right man for the job. He was a great quarterback, but that doesn't mean he can coach. Why don't you use that pretty face of yours to get him to open up the offense more? With a receiver like Bobby Tom, you've got to throw deep. And he needs to start Bryzski instead of Reynolds. You tell him that, hear?"
The man was insufferable, and she lowered her voice until it was husky. "I'll whisper it right across his pillow this very night."
Ronald quickly drew her away from the startled man before she could do any more damage and introduced her to the others. Most of them had suggestions for adjustments they wanted Dan to make in his starting lineup and plays they wanted him to add. She wondered if all men secretly aspired to be football coaches.
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She flirted with them until she could ease away, and then walked over to the windows to gaze down into the stadium. The kickoff was less than ten minutes away, and there were far too many empty seats, despite the fact that the Stars were playing their opening game against the popular Denver Broncos. No wonder the team was having so many financial problems. If something didn't change soon, those layoffs Dan had mentioned were going to become a reality.
The men in the skybox watched her legs while she watched a television commentator explain why the Broncos were going to beat the Stars. Ron appeared at her side. He shifted nervously from one foot to another, and she remembered that he'd seemed jumpy ever since he'd picked her up. "Is something wrong?"
"Would you mind very much coming with me?"
"Of course not." She picked up her small purse and followed him out of the skybox into the hallway. "Has something happened I should know about?"
"Not exactly. It's just…" He steered her toward one of the private elevators and pushed the button, "Phoebe, this is funny really." The doors slid open, and he drew her inside. "You've probably heard that athletes are notoriously superstitious. Some of them insist on wearing the same pair of socks all season or putting on their equipment in exactly the same order. A lot of them have developed elaborate pregame rituals over the years—which doors they use, how they approach the stadium. They tuck good luck charms in their uniforms. Silly stuff, really, but it gives them confidence, so there's no harm."
She regarded him suspiciously as the elevator began its descent. "What does this have to do with me?"
"Not you, exactly. Well, Bert, really. And certain members of the team." He glanced nervously at his watch. "It involves the Bears, too. And Mike McCaskey."
McCaskey was the grandson of George Halas, the legendary founder of the Chicago Bears. He was also the Bears' controversial president and CEO. But, unlike herself, McCaskey knew something about running a football team, so Phoebe didn't see the connection.