Offside Trap

by A. J. Stewart

  “No, they don’t seem too keen on it.”

  “How’d you get in?”

  “I walked in. Tell me about Jake.”

  She leaned against the backrest and tapped her fingers on her knees.

  “What’s to tell. He’s a good guy.”

  “Athlete?”

  “Yeah. Lacrosse. Captain this year.”

  “What about you?”

  “Soccer.”

  I looked her over again. She was the opposite of Kim Rose. Kim had short, dark hair. Angel’s was long, blond but not really so, and in a ponytail. Kim was whippet thin and had body fat hovering as close to zero as a woman could get. Angel looked fit, but was rounder, fleshier, and had breasts that I imagined to be a burden on the soccer field.

  “You know Director Rose, then?”

  “Course. She’s the reason I came to this school.”

  “She coach you?”

  “Some. Not much. She’s got a lot of admin crap to do, you know? Waste really. She’d be an awesome coach. She’s done it all. Olympics, World Cup. Everything.”

  “That what you want to do?”

  “Me? No. I’m not in that league. I finish college, that will be it for me.”

  “So why do it?”

  She frowned like I’d asked a redundant question. “Because I love it.”

  I knew the feeling. For four years I hustled in the minors before I got a shot at The Show. Twenty-nine games and zero pitches later I was back in the minors. For another season I played believing I’d get back, get another shot. The last season I played because I loved the game, the locker rooms, the guys, while the fire dimmed inside, and then extinguished.

  “How do you know Jake?”

  “We practice on the same fields, take some classes together.”

  “You his girlfriend?”

  “Me? Hell, no. We just talked, here and there.”

  “Does he have a girlfriend?”

  “No.”

  “Is he gay?”

  “Why would he be gay?”

  “Why not? It’s a possibility.”

  “No, he isn’t gay. He had girlfriends. Nothing serious, though. He was too focused.”

  “On what?”

  “Winning,” she said, as if the answer were obvious. “Lacrosse. He was totally fixated on it. He wanted to be the best. Like he had something to prove.”

  I sat in silence for a while and looked over the diamond. Then I turned to Angel. I couldn’t tell what color her eyes were. Maybe brown, maybe gray.

  “Was Jake into drugs?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Did he take drugs?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know. He wouldn’t. For him, it was all about performance. He wouldn’t take something that would hurt his performance. He just wouldn’t.”

  “So how else can someone be into drugs?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I asked if he was into drugs and you said how do you mean. So if he wasn’t taking drugs how was he into them?”

  She looked at her feet. I didn’t take that as a good sign.

  “You can’t tell his parents.”

  I shook my head. “He was dealing,” I said.

  Her head shot up and her eyes burned. “No,” she said. “It’s not what you think.”

  “What do I think?” I frowned.

  Angel shook her head. Her ponytail flopped onto her shoulder, and she brushed it away.

  “He would never touch that stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  “You know, the hard stuff. Maxx and all that.”

  “Who’s Max?”

  “Not who, what. M-A-X-X. Where have you been?”

  “Listening to Jimmy Buffett. So what’s this Maxx?”

  “It’s the in thing. Meth. But what I’m telling you is Jake wouldn’t touch that stuff.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Trust me, I know. Jake, he was all about performance. He hardly even drank.”

  “So, Angel, how did he end up unconscious under the bleachers?”

  The whistling from the playing fields grew loud and impatient. Angel looked toward it and stood. She was holding a pair of soccer cleats, white with three pink stripes.

  “I gotta go. I’m late for practice.” She stepped out of the row in one swift move and took off down the steps, ponytail flopping from side to side. She turned and ran down the ramp and out of sight without looking back.

  I watched her go and then looked back to the baseball diamond. Put myself in Jake’s cleats. What would he do to focus on his performance. What, in four years of college and six years of pro baseball, had I tried? What hadn’t I tried? I still drank smoothies for breakfast because of the desire to stay healthy and on the park. I still ran, even when Danielle wasn’t there. I took weekly massages because I learned the value of staying supple. But smoothies, jogs and massages didn’t get you overdosed under the bleachers. Then it hit me. The one thing I’d done that led to the slippery slope. The sort of slippery slope that ended under the bleachers, fighting for your life. And the word flashed in my mind, like a giant neon sign on Forty-Second Street.

  Performance.

  Chapter Eight

  I WANDERED BACK along the road that divided the sports facilities from the main campus. The playing fields were alive under floodlights, athletes running up and down, doing drills and sprints. There was more than one team, in fact more than one sport. The coaches’ offices were darkened. I assumed they were on the field, whistles in mouths. On the other side of the road the main campus offered a quiet glow. I noted the gym and Kim’s office were on that side of the road. I wasn’t sure whether that meant something or nothing. I took out my cell phone and punched a contact. The phone rang and I looked at the gym building.

  “Kimberly Rose,” she answered. Evidently the assistant got paid by the hour.

  “Kim, Miami.”

  “Hey there.” Her voice softened. “Getting anywhere?”

  “Early days. Listen, you free for a drink?”

  “Sure. When?”

  “How about now? I’m on campus.”

  “Not here. I know a great place. Let’s say thirty minutes?”

  I parked in a lot just off East Las Olas Boulevard. It was fully dark, and the beach chairs from the resorts had been pulled in. All the tourists and business types were in bars or restaurants, or in their rooms getting ready. A soft breeze blew in off the Atlantic, pushing the whitecaps up onto the sand. The glow of waterfront hotels and restaurants glimmered in the breaking waves. I sucked in a couple lungfuls of ocean air, and then headed down the beach to meet Kim.

  The restaurant was in a chain hotel with a million-dollar view of the beach, at least during the day. I have a theory, developed through years of studious research, about restaurants with million-dollar views. The food is usually not worth a nickel. And a modest bar tab will give you a coronary. I wondered how much athletic directors were paid. Kim arrived during my second beer. She looked fantastic. She wore a simple black dress that accentuated her firm legs and arms, and drew attention away from her flat chest. A designer had put a great deal of thought into it. She got a few glances and glares as she sauntered through the room. Kim was not what you would call conventionally beautiful. Her hair was black and short, more about management than style. She was angular rather than curvaceous, and her cheekbones and jaw were strong, almost masculine. But she wore that glow that only the truly fit and healthy possess.

  “Look who grew up,” I said.

  Kim smiled. “You look good.”

  “I look like the dog’s breakfast two days later. You look stunning.”

  “This old thing?” she said, sitting opposite me. The waiter appeared and Kim ordered a martini. She leaned toward me as if we were about to discuss treason.

  “I never get to wear it. I’m usually at home with ESPN and a yogurt.” Her drink arrived and she took a sip. “So how’s it all go
ing?”

  “Meeting some interesting people.”

  “Well, that’s the main thing,” she said, eyebrow raised. We turned our attention to the menus. The waiter reappeared and told us that the specials were Blue Point oysters, beef tenderloin and a white fish ceviche. I’m from Connecticut, so I know that Blue Points are about the only good thing to come out of that state. But the thing about bivalves is this: they live inside shells. They’re not designed for travel. If I’m in the Panhandle I’ll be sure to do a stopover in Apalachicola for some excellent oysters. Otherwise in Florida, I steer clear. I also have another rule: don’t eat seafood in Vegas or beef in the Bahamas. I went with the ceviche. Kim ordered the oysters and a heritage beet salad, which made the beets sound like they had been around in Lincoln’s day.

  “So what have you been doing for the last decade or so?” Kim said, sipping her drink. She took it dry, no olives.

  “A bit of ball, out in Cali first, then down here. Became apparent I wasn’t going to go big, so I took a masters in criminology and joined Lenny.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I smiled. People always said stuff like that. Especially people like Kim. “I’m not. Life is what life is.”

  “You don’t believe that. Life is what you make it.”

  “Sure, to a point. You got to make things happen. But unexpected stuff comes up. Life throws a curve. You deal with it and move on.”

  “But you’ve got to regret it. I mean they sent you up and never gave you a shot.”

  “No regret. I didn’t understand then, but I do now.” I took a gulp of beer. I just couldn’t get used to drinking beer from a something that resembled a champagne flute. “You won a World Cup final, right?” Kim nodded but didn’t smile.

  “So there were some girls on the squad who didn’t play. Who weren’t selected for the final. Why weren’t they selected?”

  “They weren’t good enough.”

  “Exactly. But should they regret that? That they got as far as they could go, tried as hard as they could, played a game they loved, but weren’t quite as good as the very best in the world?”

  “If they tried as hard as they could.” Kim looked at me. Hard. When her focus was on something, it was totally on it. Her eyes held the gaze of a tiger summing up its lunch.

  “You think they didn’t work hard enough?” I said.

  “I never left anything on the field. Every game, every practice, every gym session, every meal I ate. Anything less, maybe I don’t play a World Cup final. But I did.”

  I nodded. I had nothing to say. Harsh but true. I sipped my beer. Kim’s oysters arrived. They were Blue Points all right. It isn’t always the case, but with oysters, size isn’t everything. An oyster shouldn’t feel like you’ve just swallowed a pound of phlegm. Kim offered me one and I gulped it down. Despite having traveled the length of the country it was better than I expected it to be. I smacked my lips and took some beer.

  “So let me ask you something. When you were playing soccer, college and the pros, how did you keep yourself on the park?”

  “I looked after myself. I stretched for an hour every day after practice, I ate right, stayed fit in the off-season.”

  “But it’s a pretty rough game. I mean tackles, leg injuries, all that.”

  “I never got injured.”

  “Never?”

  “Not badly. Bruises and scrapes, sure. Every game. But I kept my nose clean and stayed out of trouble.”

  “What about teammates? They must’ve gotten injured.”

  She wrinkled her brow. “Sure, there were always injuries with some girls. What are you getting at?”

  “Did any girls use alternative methods to overcome injury?”

  “You mean like acupuncture?”

  “I mean like performance enhancers.”

  She leaned across the table toward me again.

  “You mean drugs?” she whispered.

  I nodded.

  “I never had anything to do with anything like that. Ever. I could run through the midfield all day because I worked my ass off. I didn’t get injured because I looked after myself. Not because of some pill.” The tiger eyes had turned into shark pupils.

  “It’s usually a jab in the thigh or the butt, actually. But what about other girls?”

  “Are you saying the US women’s soccer team took performance-enhancing drugs?” She practically just mouthed the last three words.

  “I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t there. But I did play professional sport. I know what it’s like to be hurt, to want to be on the field. The pressure to be better than your best.”

  “Did you ever take drugs?” she spat.

  I leaned back in my chair and put my beer down. “Yes.”

  Kim followed my lead and leaned back in her chair. Her mouth dropped open like a drawbridge.

  “Really?” she said. “You really did?”

  I nodded. “For a while. Guys were doing it. Guys were getting big. Big hitters, big throwers. It felt necessary to compete.”

  “Did you get tested?”

  “Yeah, but back then it wasn’t so sophisticated, and the big names hadn’t come out. Canseco, Rodriguez, Maguire. BALCO hadn’t happened. There really was no policy. You had to be suspected of something before they could test you.”

  “What did you take?”

  “Steroids, HGH.”

  “Human growth hormone,” she said to herself. She shuddered. “So what happened?”

  “I got lucky. I had a pitching coach. Good guy. He knew it was going on but said guys needed to make their own decisions. But he taught me something important. Not that the drugs were bad, even though they were. Not that they wouldn’t work, because they did. I guess he knew guys didn’t want to hear those arguments.”

  “So what did he say?”

  “He showed me tape. Video of great players, great pitchers. He showed me that great pitching wasn’t just about arm strength. It was in the mechanics. Your form. And he showed me that bulking up could actually interfere with your mechanics and make you pitch slower. You could lose your form, and lose your curveball. He sold me on it. So I stopped. Looked for every other way, healthy way, to stay on the field.”

  “I have to say I’m shocked.” Her eyes softened with something bordering on pity. I took a long gulp of my drink.

  “You never saw anything like that?”

  “No. My job was to prepare myself as best I could. What other girls did to prepare themselves was their business. Not mine. Just as long as they were ready to go for the team, on the day.”

  “What about now?”

  “I don’t play anymore.”

  “I mean at the university.”

  “No,” she said. The shark eyes were back. “There are no performance-enhancing drugs on my campus. Why would you say such a thing?”

  “Lots of young, impressionable athletes, trying to be the best, win NCAA titles.”

  “I run a clean program, Miami.”

  “How do you know? I mean, I’ve been there. It’s not that hard to hide if no one’s looking.”

  “But people are looking, Miami. The NCAA, the USADA. They’re looking. Our student-athletes get tested. In and out of season. People are most certainly looking. And they have my full cooperation.”

  “Okay,” I said. We both sipped our drinks. Then our food came. The beet salad looked fresh. My ceviche was decent without being outstanding. The silence was awkward. Again I was reminded how it never used to feel like that. We could sit in my dorm or hers, or on the bleachers at Mark Light Field. We could read or not read. Do stretching or do some study. Our chats, when they came, were always long and deep and focused on the future. Now it seemed all we had to talk about was the past, and it wasn’t such good conversation fodder.

  “What happened to Jake Turner wasn’t about that,” said Kim. “He was a good kid who fell in with the wrong crowd. I need you to understand. I need you to find that crowd, so we can make sure this doesn’t happen again to another athlet
e.”

  “Okay.”

  “This is why I called you, Miami. President Millet will try to make the same argument, that something systemic has caused this. But that’s not right. What happened to Jake wasn’t anything to do with the athletic program. He got into something bad, and I need you to find out what and how and who, so I can stop Millet from blaming this on me.” She spiked a beet and ate it. I said nothing.

  “Can you do that for me, Miami? I really need you on my team.”

  “Of course,” I said, forcing a smile. The what, I thought I knew. I’d clarify that for sure in the morning. How and who, those were questions I needed to answer.

  Chapter Nine

  WHAT I NEEDED was a frequent user card for I-95 between West Palm and Miami. Drive ten times and get a free car wash. But knowing the way the Florida legislature worked, I’d drive ten times and have to wash some other guy’s car. I sped down the freeway, steering with my knees, egg and bacon sandwich in one hand, coffee in the other. Ron’s treat. He sat next to me, smiling like a midway clown, top down on the Mustang. Ron was the poster boy for Florida living. Both the good and the bad. He was tan and fit, but wrinkled and spotted with removed skin cancers. He loved the heat, humidity, sun and torrential summer rain, but had survived Hurricane Andrew inside a refrigerator. His father had been a US diplomat and Ron had been born in Jamaica, so he was American through and through but could never be president. He was okay with that. He wasn’t completely convinced Florida belonged in the union, but he kept that view to himself except when he had a belly full of Crown Royal. But I don’t think Ron loved anything more than cruising along the freeway on a cloudless Florida day. I always expected him to put his head out the window and stick his tongue out.

  Our stop was Broward Memorial. I wanted to confirm exactly what it was Jake Turner had inside his body. Hospitals are like airports. They have their busy times, but even at the slow times, there’s always plenty going on. We parked near the foot bridge and headed back toward Jake’s room. We had timed our arrival before visiting hours so as to avoid the parents. I figured someone who looked like they had just come from church wasn’t sleeping in a cot next to her son. We got the elevator up and stepped to the corner of the corridor near the ward nurse’s desk. I couldn’t help thinking we would have looked less conspicuous in lab coats. I wore a white linen shirt and chinos; Ron was in a red short-sleeved shirt and blue trousers. We looked like escapees from a beach party. The nurse at the ward desk was a large, stern woman with pink cheeks and a mouth like a slit envelope. She looked about as closed as Santa’s workshop on December twenty-sixth.