by Tim Green
"Son of a bitch," Lonny said to himself, replacing the mail and jumping back into the van. "I knew I knew him. Son of a bitch."
Carl looked at him quizzically.
"Just take me back," Lonny said in a tone that Carl took to mean that there would be no questions and no answers. He had blown his assignment, and somewhere through his thick skull filtered the notion that he had squandered a good opportunity to make himself more valuable to the family. He cursed himself under his breath.
Carl had guessed right; Lonny had no intention of talking. He needed to think. His mind whirled with the possibilities that could arise from the information he alone now had. He wanted to give it to Tony on a silver platter. Tony would be more than pleased. Lonny had done this job right. He had photos of everything. He'd gotten Jimmy's records on all Metz's betting. He'd put it all together in a nice neat package. Tony would love it. Even with his limited knowledge of sports, Lonny knew that Hunter Logan was now a compromised man.
Lonny smiled to himself. Tony never forgot to reward the bearer of good tidings. It turned out to be a good thing that Carl had fucked up after all. If Carl knew the name, Lonny had no doubt that Jimmy the Squid would jump the gun and deliver the news to Tony himself.
Lonny sat silently for a while, then chuckled out loud. Carl looked over at him, but only Lonny knew what was making him laugh: the image of an idol named Hunter Logan whose life was about to be shattered to pieces.
Sara talked on about how her instructor had told her that if she dedicated herself, she had the talent to be a professional by the age of thirteen. Rachel was barely listening. She couldn't get the man at the mailbox out of her mind. It was strange. The feeling that something was wrong wouldn't leave her.
". . . So, can I go to the camp, Mom? Mom?" Sara said.
"Huh? What, honey?"
"Can I go to the camp? Sharon says that's where all the tennis stars start out. Can I go?"
"Sara, honey, you're five years old. I don't think you need to start worrying about being a tennis star quite yet. You have plenty of time for that. I just want you to have fun."
"But Sharon says five is when you have to start dedicating yourself," Sara said with a little huff and a shake of her head to imply that her mother couldn't very well understand the intricacies of tennis like her teenage instructor, Sharon.
"You know what, honey, we'll talk to Daddy about it," Rachel said, peering nervously up her driveway and moving slowly to make sure there wasn't anyone strange lurking about. She stopped the car halfway up the drive.
"What are you doing, Mommy?" Sara asked.
"Nothing," Rachel replied, picking up her car phone and dialing.
Julie, Rachel's housekeeper, answered on the third ring.
'Julie? Is everything all right?" Rachel asked, laughing nervously at her own silly behavior.
"Yes, Mrs. Logan. Everything is OK," Julie answered.
"Did anyone stop ... at the house?"
"Mrs. Logan? I no understand . . ."Julie said apologetically.
"Has there been anyone, a man, to visit the house since I've left, Julie?"
"No, no one here since you leave ..."
Thank you, Julie. I--I'll be right in."
Rachel hung up the phone and pulled into the garage.
"That was weird," Sara said, getting out of the Jeep and shaking her head as if she never would understand her mother.
Rachel gathered her thoughts. She hit the garage door button to close the garage.
Where was her Mace? She fished through the glove box of the Jeep. Hunter had put a canister in each of the glove boxes of their cars. She pulled everything out, papers, hairbrushes, gum, candy, tapes, but no Mace. It was a crazy notion, she knew, but she wanted it. She wanted to have it with her, at least until Hunter got home. Half of her felt silly, but half of her felt unsafe.
She crammed the junk back into the glove box and crossed the garage to Hunter's car. Bert Meyer had picked him up for golf, and she imagined that Hunter's glove box would have its Mace in it. She got in the driver's side and reached across to open the box. It was locked. She looked for Hunter's keys under the seat. They weren't there. She sighed and headed into the house. Sara was already watching Barney on TV, and Julie only gave her an understanding smile as she looked up from the dinner she was preparing. Rachel climbed the broad spiral staircase two steps at a time. It was beyond ridiculous now, her running through the house like this, but she would have that Mace. Rachel was the type of person who, once she made up her mind about something, even a small thing, was almost impossible to deter.
She fished through Hunter's drawer in the bathroom. She scoured the top of his dresser. She looked in the pockets of his jeans. His keys were nowhere to be found. He must have taken them, another strange thing, but she gave it no more thought. Rachel went into her closet and began digging through her file cabinet.
"Aha!" she said, pulling the master set from a file that held the Town Car's title and insurance documents.
Down the stairs she went, through the kitchen, past the playroom, and into the garage. When she opened Hunter's glove box she was more upset than before. The Mace was there, but so was something else. It was money, a lot of money, a neatly bound wad of hundred-dollar bills. Rachel flipped through it. She figured there were several thousand dollars there. Her mind began to whirl.
Why would Hunter have this kind of cash in his car? It was obvious he was hiding it from her. Why else would the glove box have been locked and his keys nowhere to be found? She'd heard stories of husbands in the NFL who would keep large sums of cash to spend on drugs and whores. Their wives were usually the last ones to know. She cursed under her breath. Her father had warned her when she'd first brought Hunter home. Football players, he'd told her, were no good. She tried to brush bad thoughts from her mind. She knew Hunter was a good man. He wouldn't do anything like that to her. Would he? She shut the box and was halfway across the garage before she realized she'd forgotten the Mace. She stopped, then decided to forget it after all. She had more to worry about than strange men rummaging through her mailbox. She gripped the money tightly and looked at her watch as she walked into the house. Hunter would be home within an hour and he'd have some serious explaining to do.
Chapter 14
Jesus!" Tony bellowed as he slammed down the phone.
Mike Cometti looked sideways at his boss with his face still bent toward the Post. He knew better than to speak before being spoken to, especially when Tony was mad about something, and now he was mad. The two men were sitting in the office of a warehouse where the family's construction company stored its heavy equipment. In back of their desks was a wall of one-way glass that looked out over the busy warehouse where yellow and orange payloaders, bulldozers, and backhoes were constantly coming or going. Besides being owned by the Mondolffis and being all union, the company was like every other big construction firm in the metropolitan area. Like his father before him, Tony was ultimately responsible for this part of the family's business, as well as for his many other enterprises. In practice, Tony did little more for the construction business than keep an office on the premises. Also like his father before him, he had a man named John Mann run the entire operation for him. John was almost seventy now, but he was still tough and capable, and his efficiency allowed Tony the luxury of involving himself in other ventures.
"Mikey, you believe this shit?" Tony complained.
Cometti's paper went down like a finish flag.
"Believe what, Tony?"
"Between these fucking FBI boners and my fucking uncle, I can't do squat. Now I got those fucking Colombians pissed as hell at me because I can't deliver to them. So now when we do get to start up with those fucking animals again, I'm gonna have to start from square one again. Fuck. Sometimes I half think Uncle Vinny's got a point about dealing with those assholes. But the fucking money! Then I think of that, and I know Uncle Vinny ain't got no sense."
The intercom buzzed and Tony hit the button.
>
"Yeah?" he said.
'Tony, Lonny's here. Says he's got something for you" came a voice over the box.
"OK," Tony replied, "send him in."
'This," Tony said to Cometti, "oughta be interesting."
Lonny appeared through the door and stood before Tony's desk with his head hung slightly. Mike Cometti liked to see people, especially people like Lonny Watts, prostrate themselves in front of Tony. Mikey knew that outside Tony's presence, Lonny was a mean and dangerous man. But here he stood, docile as a lamb, and dressed ridiculously in a suit that must have been fifteen years old, and a wide tie that reached only halfway down the front of his shirt. His hair was slicked back in a way that only further accentuated his hatchet-shaped face.
"Lonny," Tony said in a friendly way, holding out his hand to shake, "what have you got for me? I bet it's something good. Whadya got?"
Lonny looked around the room as if to make sure that no one else was there. He handed a large envelope over the desk to Tony before he spoke.
"I think you're gonna like this, Tony," Lonny began. "I got pictures and everything in there. I got the records of how this guy's been betting for the past year. You're not gonna believe it. It's Hunter Logan. Hunter Logan is the guy behind this fat Metz character."
Tony and Mike Cometti stared at each other, their mouths hung wide open.
"You talking about the Hunter Logan? The quarterback for the Titans?"
"Yeah," Lonny said, nodding his head. "Look there. See that. That's him taking that wad of cash Jimmy paid off to that Metz guy. I know it don't look like him much with those glasses and that hat and all, but it's him. I followed him home. I figure he does that so no one in public will bother him for autographs and shit. There's a shot of Metz with Jimmy. Here's the betting records from football season. Hunter Logan and Metz did real good."
"Why, that dumb bastard," Tony murmured, gazing at the photos as he laid them out on the desk in front of him. "I guess he must've turned into some kind of big shot, betting ten grand all of a sudden. Did this fucking guy think no one would notice that? Could the great Hunter Logan be a big fucking idiot football player after all?"
Tony was quiet for a few moments, thinking. Then he began to chuckle at his own idea. "Oh," he said between breaths. "Oh, this is perfect. This is just. . . perfect."
Once he settled down, Tony looked seriously at Lonny and said, "Lonny, I want you to stick to Logan like glue. I want you watching him all the time. Get to know what he does, what his routine is. I'm gonna try to talk with him and once I do, I want to know the minute he takes a piss in a place he doesn't normally piss in. Got that? I want to make sure this guy doesn't go queer on me the minute I break the bad news to him. You're gonna get to know everything that goes on in this guy's life, Lonny. Hunter Logan just got himself a new shadow."
Tony picked up Camille at seven and took her to Sixth Street in the East Village. The block was lined with Indian restaurants, and Tony told Camille to choose the one she liked the looks of best.
"Word is, they all got the same kitchen anyway," he said.
They were there because Camille mentioned her appetite for hot food and Tony told her there was no hot like the Indian food on Sixth Street. As he drove from his warehouse in Brooklyn to Camille's building in Manhattan, Tony had contemplated just what would be the best way to get himself introduced to Hunter Logan without making it obvious that that was what he was trying to do. Camille was sharp, and she'd pick up on anything that didn't seem natural. So, during his drive he mentally rehearsed different conversations that would lead to Hunter Logan. He imagined if he just hung on to Camille, he would meet Logan eventually, but Tony had a plan, and he wanted to implement that plan now. There was no telling how long it might take to run into Logan unless Tony took some initiative, and he wanted to strike while the iron was hot. He wanted that ten-thousand-dollar bet fresh in Logan's mind when he spoke to him.
After they ordered, Tony said, "So, how do you like owning a professional football team?"
Camille rolled her eyes.
"First of all, I don't own them, my father does," she said. "Second, I'm not real big on sports. I go to the games because it's my father's pride and joy, that team. But for me it's no big deal."
After a pause she said, "I don't imagine you're much of a sports fan, are you?"
"Why do you say that?" he asked as their waiter spread appetizers out in front of them.
"I just don't see you as a fan. You're more of a participant. Am I right?"
Tony smiled. He took that as a compliment.
"You're right," he said, "but there is one guy that I must admit I'd like to meet sometime . . . Hunter Logan." Something flashed across Camille's eyes, but Tony didn't notice. He saw only the bland expression on her face.
"Yes, well... I guess a lot of people want to meet him right now," she said. "It's really amazing when you think about it. He came here from some other team, what, six or seven years ago? I think the team that he came from, Minnesota or Green Bay, someplace cold ... I think they didn't even want him. The New York fans actually booed him the first time he ever went in to replace the old quarterback, that Dan Farber guy. Now the Titans win the Super Bowl and Hunter Logan is the most sought-after man in the city, probably in the entire country, if you think about it."
"Well, I admire anyone who's the best at what they do, and at the risk of being like everyone else, I'd still like to meet him."
"OK," Camille said, "I can make that happen. My father is having a July Fourth party in the Hamptons. He'll be there. If you want to go, we can. I'm sure you'll bump into him. But I want something from you, too."
"Oh," he said, raising one eyebrow, "what's that?"
"When we went to that Italian restaurant in the Rockaways, you told me about a place that you go to be alone sometimes, a place in the mountains that almost no one knows about."
Tony's face flushed slightly. It was more than the food. It embarrassed him to have talked like that to someone, like he was some kind of romantic. That stuff was bullshit, and for some reason he'd slipped into it on their last date. Maybe it had been the wine. Maybe it had been her. Either way, it annoyed him, and he reminded himself not to be so soft in the head. He was doing just fine with Camille without turning into some kind of Mr. Sensitivity.
"I want you to take me there," she said. "If I'm going to drag myself out to the Hamptons just so you can meet some muscle-headed jock, I want you to take me someplace special."
"You make it sound like it's the last thing on earth you'd want to do," he said, annoyed at her demand.
The Hamptons is all right, but it's so damn conventional. Polo shirts and golf pants . . . people in sailor outfits who don't even own boats . . . I just don't see it as the place for you and me.
"So, is it a deal?" she said. "You take me up to that cabin and I'll take you out to the Hamptons."
He didn't like her saying what she thought was right for "you and me," as she'd put it. That kind of talk didn't float with Tony Rizzo.
"I'm not used to people making demands," he said menacingly.
'You're not used to me," she replied arrogantly, even though in the back of her mind she had the sensation of being a child playing with fire.
Hunter and Rachel were sitting in the great room. The twelve-foot ceiling was spanned by heavy timber beams. The wood floors were covered with richly colored Oriental rugs. Rachel sat across from him on the opposite couch, her arms crossed. A coffee table was between them. Hunter felt as though he were being interrogated from the moment he sat down.
He had not wanted Rachel to find out about the bet. He knew from the start that she would be upset, and now, thinking back, he realized that the thought of making her unhappy had almost prevented him from placing the bet in the first place. He told himself it was a lesson he should have learned long before now, the lesson of listening to that inner voice. But he had rationalized that he would not get caught, and that if he did get caught, Rachel wouldn't be th
at mad if he had some productive plans for the money he'd made.
But he knew then, and he certainly knew now, that no excuse would deflect Rachel's anger. He could say, "Hey, I make enough that I can afford to lose a little." But he wouldn't. He didn't even like to remind himself of how much money he'd already made and lost over his years as an NFL player. He hadn't been the best at maintaining his finances.
He knew what she would say: "What if you lost?" And she was right. He'd been irresponsible with their money before, when he got hooked up with Dick Madigan. But this bet hadn't been a risk. He'd known that, and that's what he was trying to explain.
At first Rachel was close to tears with anger and pain, and although she was visibly relieved when he promised not to gamble any more of their money, the anger at what she was calling his foolish and dangerous attitude remained.
"Don' t you think you're overreacting?" Hunter exclaimed passionately, willing her to see his side of it. "I mean dangerous, how could it be dangerous?"
"It's dangerous, Hunter, because when people start throwing money around like that they can lose control. I saw it happen to a lot of people in my neighborhood while growing up. I had friends whose fathers were successful men, rich men. Some of them got into gambling. Next thing you knew, they were broke, or going to jail because of some embezzlement scheme that they'd pulled to pay off their debts. There's no way to lose money as quickly as gambling, and I'm not just going to sit around and nod my head when I see you doing something like this!
"How?" she began for the tenth time. "How on earth could you think of gambling ten thousand dollars? I know you've got this big new contract, but ten thousand dollars on one game. What will it be next? Will you bet the title to your car? To the house? If you start getting into that, Hunter, you can never stop. I've seen it."
