A Score to Settle

by Donna Huston Murray

  I was tempted to shadow them back to the lobby but could think of no way to escape should they confront me. Still, each of them had given me a sense of who they were. Enough for now.

  Men suddenly began to pour from the locker room in groups of three and four, but often singly, too.

  Morani Todd proved to be the most imposing. He wore a custom-sized brown leather sport coat over a darker brown turtleneck and brown wool slacks. His eyes seemed to apologize for his body's bulk, as if the man himself wished he were smaller. As he spoke, Todd's hands performed the delicate gestures of a scholar. The baby shower would be in his home, and I looked forward to seeing his personal surroundings.

  Patrick Dionne, the center, carried his muscle under a layer of lard. Or maybe it was all muscle, but either way he was the classic no-neck jock. Walking by himself, moving with that Big-Man-on-Campus shoulder swagger, he revealed nothing of himself other than his formidable presence.

  Bo Shifflett, on the other hand, made me shiver. He wore sweats in the team colors of sky blue and navy with the jacket zipped up tight to his chin. A reputed clean-freak, he appeared to have scrubbed himself white down to his fingertips. In profile, Shifflett's honey blond crewcut and hook nose suggested the flat uninvolved gaze of a predator, perhaps a hawk with huge pupils calculating trajectory from above or a fanatic in a bell tower watching you through cross-hairs. On Thanksgiving Doug had offered Bo Shifflett's name as an example of a God-fearing player. That knowledge, however, did nothing to diminish my instinctive fear of the man.

  Late in the exiting process Doug emerged from the locker room in the company of the Tomcats' head coach. Laneer appeared to be somewhat older than his wife Barbara, or maybe the blotches and spots on his fair skin testified to too many years out in the open air.

  "Oh!" Doug exclaimed. "Sorry, Gin. Forgot you were coming. This is Jack Laneer. Jack, this is my wife's cousin, Ginger Barnes."

  I shook the head coach's chapped hand while he finished what he'd been saying to Doug. Something about the Eagles' offense that didn't matter to me.

  While they wrapped it up, I debated about whether or not to be obnoxiously blunt. Since I probably wouldn't even be a memory to the guy in about five minutes, I decided it didn't really matter what he thought of me.

  "So Jack," I said when I got the chance. "How come you benched Walker Cross last Sunday? Inquiring minds want to know." My inquiring mind, anyway.

  The man appealed to Doug for help by angling his wispy eyebrows into a peak of dismay.

  Responding well to suggestion, Doug grasped my elbow and guided me toward the exit. "Her husband's a coach," he remarked over his shoulder by way of apology.

  "Father," I corrected him, but already we were beyond Laneer's hearing.

  "What the hell was that?" Doug demanded.

  I shrugged off his hand and his question. "I wanted to see his reaction."

  "Well, you saw it. Now don't ever do that again. Okay?"

  Knowing I would never need to ask Laneer that question again, I agreed.

  When I called home at dinnertime, Chelsea's voice made me homesick. Yet I was quick to remember the rule that all mothers of teenagers learn the hard way. I kept the conversation strictly neutral.

  "What's for dinner?"

  "I did spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread. Garry, Dad, and I already ate."

  "You burn the garlic bread?" A habit I can’t seem to break.

  My daughter instantly became condescending. "No, Mom. You really just have to watch it."

  "Easy for you to say."

  She snorted.

  "So where are Nana and Gracie?"

  "They're over at Letty's playing poker. They left a note. That friend Letty met at KMart is there, too."

  So my mother and her buddy were just next door, not too far away for the kids to find in case of an emergency. However, it was already dark, six P.M., which meant Letty was probably losing pennies left and right. For an eccentric old woman she was surprisingly competitive.

  "I think you should run over and tell your grandmother dinner's ready."

  Chelsea mumbled that it was way past ready–it was cold–but Garry grabbed the phone and rescued me from hearing more echoes of my own complaints. "Where's that little recorder we used to have?" he asked.

  "Fine. How are you?" I said.

  "Hi, Mom. How are you? Do you know where it is? I can't find it anywhere, and I need it for Sunday."

  "In that end table next to the sofa toward the patio door. It'll need batteries."

  "Thanks, Mom."

  Rip came on. "When are you coming home?"

  "Soon," I answered. As soon as possible.

  SPAGHETTI, SALAD, AND garlic bread sounded pretty good about then, so that was what I made for Michelle, Doug and me. The old hot dog rolls I doctored up for garlic bread let me down, though. I watched them broil for about thirty seconds, then I began thinking about Jack Laneer's non answer. Did it mean he sat Walker Cross down, or that Bobby Frye asked him to? By the time I decided that no answer was no answer, the hot dog rolls wore inedible oval edges as black as shoe polish. My record was intact.

  Michelle, Doug and I watched a little evening TV together, but the mother-to-be was looking especially fragile. When Doug cuddled her in his lap and began kissing her hair, I claimed I was sleepy and went upstairs. Ronnie had given me his itinerary, and it was time I reported in.

  He listened without comment to what I'd been doing, grunted a few times over what I'd learned, and finally said, "What's next?"

  "Darned if I know. I have high hopes for the baby shower. But honestly, I'm getting ready to go home. I’m thinking Sunday's about it."

  "Please?" Ronnie wheedled. "If you stay, I promise to get you a sideline pass for the future game of your choice."

  "My family..."

  "Michelle's your family, too." And Kewpie. He forgot to mention Kewpie, but he probably knew the baby wouldn't be something a softie like me would forget.

  "Nevertheless." I explained that I felt I wasn't really getting anywhere.

  "You don't know that for sure."

  "The police..."

  "Puh."

  "You can really get me a sideline pass? Like you did for Olga?"

  "Pshew. Will you leave the Olga thing alone already? Yes. I can swing you a pass on a one-time basis. Just you, not the whole girls' volleyball team from Bryn Derwyn Academy."

  "What about Rip, or the kids?"

  "No." That sounded like a real no.

  "I'm still going home Sunday."

  Ronnie considered that. "All right. I suppose you can't stay there forever, but you'll give it your best shot between now and then. Right?"

  "Right."

  My best shot, a common enough sports metaphor but also a chilling reminder.

  Chapter 13

  THANKS TO RONNIE'S groveling, my subconscious must have been working all night, because I woke up with an idea. I would try to find out whether Bobby Frye was responsible for Walker Cross being benched. After all, he was the one who would save all that money if Cross didn't reach his quotas.

  Discovering whether Frye went sneaky cheap on his premier receiver would also help deflate the notion of Cross solely blaming Tim Duffy for his bad day. Sooner or later I'd have to learn whether any sort of competitive animosity actually existed between Duffy and Cross; but frankly, the obstacles between me and Bobby Frye seemed less formidable than the prospect of facing Walker Cross. Bravery wasn't always wise.

  So, since I'm not entirely comfortable with lying, even in the interest of a greater good, my first piece of business was to wake up Didi. Education paying what it does, stocks didn't figure much into the Barnes family lifestyle; but Didi's ex-husband was a broker, and she had been a quick study.

  "Ugh," my best friend grunted into the phone.

  "It's me," I replied.

  "Where are you?" She must have called my house recently and learned that I was away.

  "Virginia Beach."

  "Michelle stil
l having problems?"

  "Yes, and not just with the baby."

  Didi got it on the first try. "Tim Duffy!" she exclaimed, fully awake now. As I said, she followed pro football mainly because of the tight pants, but she specifically watched the Tomcats because of my relationship to Doug. And, of course, any red-blooded American who wasn't aware of Tim's murder had been in isolation since Sunday.

  Regardless, the undercurrent of excitement coming across the wire put me on guard. Incurably hooked on dramatic fiction, my best friend since diapers was inclined to romanticize my ability to investigate and her ability to help. Consequently, when she said, "What do you need?" in a sitting-up-straight, all-business voice I gulped back a small qualm before proceeding. A pinch of salt, a daily dose of risk. Everything in moderation.

  "I need two shares of stock in a company held by Supratech."

  "Why?"

  "To use as a crowbar. I need to get inside Bobby Frye's door." She would know who he was; he was wealthy and divorced.

  The pauses between questions stretched. "When?" she asked.

  "I should be dressed to go out in about half an hour."

  I visualized Didi with her blonde head tilted just so, thumb and forefinger rubbing her forehead.

  "So what do I need to do?" I asked. My impatience was probably as predictable to Didi as her "Thinker" position was to me.

  "Do you have an account with an on-line discount broker?"

  "Would I be calling you if I did?"

  "Sorry. Need my coffee. Does Cynthia have a broker for her retirement income?"

  I vaguely remembered a doddering man Mom introduced as a genius with money. At the time I made a mental note to ask more about him and then forgot to follow through. I jotted down another note, this time on paper.

  "Nobody I can call this morning," I answered.

  "Okay. I'll just buy them for you."

  "You can do that?"

  "Are you going to pay me?"

  "Well, sure."

  "So what's the problem?"

  "Won't somebody be able to check whose name the stock is in?"

  "Not this morning they won't. It'll be held at the broker's in street name–lucky for you. If Bobby Frye found out you only owned two shares..."

  "Right." I would be screwed.

  We ironed out the details. Didi would consult Supratech's website to learn which companies it held, then she would buy me a couple shares of one of them through her own internet account. Didi demanded lunch at Pizza Hut next Tuesday as her commission.

  Michelle lent me a black watch plaid blazer and slacks outfit from her pre-Kewpie collection, and I was just hopping into my second shoe when Didi called back.

  "Break a leg," she said after she assured me I was now a stockholder of Kenthaven Electronics, maker of computer cables and various other widgets.

  I told her, "Bless you and the horse you rode in on."

  "By the way," she remarked in an offhand manner that made my skin tingle. "Did you know Bobby Frye is being sued by some of his stockholders?"

  I made a strangled noise.

  "I take that as a no," Didi responded. "Need the details?"

  "Yes."

  "Okay. Bobby is, among other things, president of Goaltech, the internet provider. So he got the bright idea of buying a company that makes routers, which are used in the comm rooms that are located in every state where Goaltech operates. The comm rooms–communications rooms–are sort of big closets full of fiber wires and rows and rows of blue racks. A router is a little piece of hardware that forwards e-mail, directs your web inquiries to the right databanks, stuff like that. In other words, Bobby had Goaltech buy a company that made some of the hardware it uses to physically operate its system. You with me?"

  "Yes."

  "The problem is that the company he bought makes lousy routers, which the Goaltech people found out the hard way–by using the product themselves."

  "Ouch."

  "Ouch is right. Tied the whole system into knots. Subscribers bailed left and right. Goaltech's stock took a dive, and the stockholders put together a nasty little class-action suit aimed directly at his highness. Bobby's insurance company is fighting it, of course, but it looks like he's already taken a direct hit where it hurts the most–right in his pocket."

  "Amazing. How did you find out so much so quick?"

  "Phoned Harvey. I wanted to ask him which Supratech holding to buy for you." Didi's ex-husband was still a broker. However, he lived in New Mexico.

  "Thanks," I said with sincere gratitude–who wants to hold even two shares of a rotten stock? "But wasn't it a little early to phone Albuquerque?"

  "Harvey did seem a bit snide when he told me about the lawsuit. You think I woke him up, huh?"

  A lightbulb went on. "Yes, I mean no. I don't think that was what ticked him off," I remarked with the glee of any garden variety gossip.

  "I didn't wake him up?"

  "Oh, you woke him up alright. But I'll bet both my assets he was jealous."

  "Of Bobby Frye?"

  "Divorced and rich, your favorite kind. You said you were in a hurry to buy into one of the guy's

  companies 'for...a...friend.'"

  "Son of a bitch, you're right. You still owe me fifty six-forty eight, but Pizza Hut's definitely on me."

  I hung up and smiled. A real live investor in the American economy. Me. Interesting feeling. Exhilarating. Scary. I felt simultaneously on the edge and out of my element. At home I would give one of the shares to each of my kids to let them experience the kick, maybe learn from it.

  But only after I used my purchase to meet the owner of the Norfolk Tomcats.

  Even with Didi's confidence-builder in place, I had more homework to do before presenting myself to Bobby Frye's minions, such as phoning to make certain he was in town—a good bet considering all the problems the shooting must have caused his football team—and obtaining the address of his office, which turned out to be a high-rise in the center of Norfolk.

  By 11:30 I was fidgeting from foot to foot in an elevator full of Yuppies. At first the snuggled-up feeling bothered me, but as each floor claimed another one or two suits, I found myself wanting to shriek, "Don't go!"

  When at last the glossy copper doors opened onto Bobby Frye's floor, I alone stepped out into the blue and teak lobby.

  "Mr. Frye's office?" I inquired of the receptionist.

  "Is he expecting you?" the woman asked with polite neutrality.

  "Yes," I said. If not me, someone like me but far more official.

  The receptionist gestured down a short hall to another anteroom of steel blue. Even in that short a distance my black flats picked up enough static electricity to frizz the lining of Michelle's slacks. I restored the air pockets around my shins, then waited while the Supratech's chairman-of-the-board's assistant finished on the phone. She didn't seem so much petite as shrunken, perhaps from Amazon size down to something that would fit under a Christmas tree.

  "Yes," she said to the caller. "I'll tell him...you have to cancel lunch because," she was writing, "because your mother had a heart attack. Oh, Mr. Ingram, I'm so sorry to hear that. Mr. Frye will be, too. Yes, of course, call back and reschedule anytime..."

  Bobby Frye's desk sentry frowned over the waste of her employer's precious time, but her sigh seemed to accept that there was nothing to be done. After all, Mr. Ingram's mother must be a real person, albeit an invisible one, and she did have a very real problem. These things happen.

  "May I help you?" she asked now that her emotions were back in order.

  "I'm here to invite Mr. Frye to lunch," I ad-libbed, quickly adding that I needed his advice on a business matter just in case she mistook me for a gold-digger. The man had just gone through an expensive divorce.

  Both of us jumped when her boss burst from his inner sanctum. "Sheila," the super-executive cried, "do you have anything I can use for cufflinks? I brought in the wrong kind of shirt."

  In keeping with the less-is-more theme, Bo
bby Frye stood a mere two inches taller than my five-foot six. Also, he was small boned and lean. The football players probably had to resist patting him on the head or bouncing him in the palms of their hands.

  Sheila proffered a pair of paper clips and a stapler.

  Bobby regarded both choices with pursed lips, finally opting for the stapler. When his assistant pulled his wrist down to her desktop, he squirmed.

  "Hurry up," he complained. "I'll be late for my lunch with Ingram." Clomp, clomp.

  "No, you won't." Clomp, clomp. "He canceled. Family emergency."

  My cue to step forward. "I volunteered to take his place."

  Frye furrowed his pale brown brows together and inquired, "Do I know you?" His subtle black pinstriped suit gave off a rich, low-grade sheen, and the man projected a certain authority even with stapled cuffs.

  Still, I placed his age at no more than 38 or 40. Young to have earned and lost and re-earned a couple of fortunes. Yet I gathered from Didi that it could be like that with technology companies, especially if you pressed the limits.

  "I'm a stockholder–and a fan," I replied.

  Frye's eyebrows returned to parade-rest. I decided that his smooth cheeks were eminently pinchable. He also had a nice straight nose.

  "Oh, the Tomcats. Yes." Personal pride in his most public possession lifted the corners of his mouth into an impish grin.

  "No," I corrected, "of you."

  "I beg your pardon?" He stuffed his hands into his pants' pockets and blinked at me.

  "I'm a fan of yours. I like the Tomcats, of course, but I really admire your other business accomplishments. That's why I'm here."

  Sheila shot me a distrustful look, as well she should have. However, she chose not to interfere.

  Bobby’s brow furrowed. "I'm afraid I still don't understand.”

  I tossed a hand as if searching for the right words, which, to be honest, I was. "I own a number of shares of Kenthaven Electronics that I'm intending to give to a certain charity, but I'd like your advice on whether to hold the shares a bit longer. Also, I'm hungry, and I heard that your lunch date fell through."