hardball? And hadn’t Emily told Myron she would do anything to keep her kids? Even kill. How did Emily react when she learned about the videotape? Spurred on by this awful violation, how far would Emily go?
Myron entered his office building on Park Avenue. He exchanged a brief elevator smile with a young woman in a business suit. The elevator reeked of drugstore cologne, the kind where some guy decides that taking a shower is too time-consuming so he opts for sprinkling himself with enough cologne to glaze a wedding cake. The young woman sniffed and looked at Myron.
“I don’t wear cologne,” he said.
She didn’t seem convinced. Or perhaps she was condemning the gender in general for this affront. Understandable under these circumstances.
“Try holding your breath,” he said.
She looked at him, her face a seaweed green.
When he entered his office, Esperanza smiled and said, “Good morning.”
“Oh no,” Myron said.
“What?”
“You’ve never said good morning to me before. Ever.”
“I have too.”
Myron shook his head. “
“What are you talking about?”
“You heard about what happened last night. You’re trying to be—dare I say it?—nice to me.”
The fire in her eyes flamed up. “You think I give a shit about that game? That you got your butt burned at every turn?”
Myron shook his head. “Too late,” he said. “You care.”
“I do not. You sucked. Get over it.”
“Nice try.”
“What, nice try? You sucked. S-U-C-K-E-D. A pitiful display. I was embarrassed to know you. I hid my head in shame when I came in.”
He bent down and kissed her cheek.
Esperanza wiped it off with the back of her hand. “Now I got to get a cootie shot.”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Really.”
“Like I care. Really.”
The phone rang. She picked it up. “MB SportsReps. Why yes, Jason, he is here. Hold on a moment.” She put a hand over the receiver. “It’s Jason Blair.”
“The vermin who said you had a nice ass?”
She nodded. “Remind him about my legs.”
“I’ll take it in my office.” A photograph on the top of a stack of papers on her desk caught his eye. “What’s this?”
“The Raven Brigade file,” she said.
He picked up a grainy photo of the group taken in 1973, the only shot of the seven of them together. He quickly found Liz Gorman. He hadn’t gotten a good look at her, but from what he saw, there was no way anyone would ever imagine that Carla and Liz Gorman were one and the same. “Mind if I keep this for a few minutes?” he asked.
“Suit yourself.”
He moved into his office and picked up the phone. “What’s up, Jason?”
“Where the fuck have you been?”
“Not much. How about you?”
“Don’t play smart guy with me. You put that little lady on my contract and she fucked it all up. I got half a mind to leave MB.”
“Calm down, Jason. How did she fuck it up?”
His voice cracked with incredulity. “You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Here we are, hot in the middle of negotiating with the Red Sox, right?”
“Right.”
“I want to stay in Boston. We both know that. But we have to make a lot of noise like I’m leaving. That’s what you said to do. Make them think you want to switch teams. To up the money. I’m a free agent. This is what we got to do, right?”
“Right.”
“We don’t want them to know I want to be on the team again, right?”
“Right. To a degree.”
“Fuck to a degree,” he snapped. “The other day my neighbor gets a mailing from the Sox, asking him to renew his season tickets. Guess whose picture is on the brochure saying I’m gonna be back? Go ahead. Guess.”
“Would that be yours, Jason?”
“Damn straight mine! So I call up little Miss Nice Ass—”
“She’s got great legs too.”
“What?”
“Her legs. She’s not that tall, so they’re not very long. But they’re nicely toned.”
“Will you quit fucking around here, Myron? Listen to me. She tells me the Sox called up and asked if they could use my picture in the ad, even though I wasn’t signed. She tells them to go ahead! Go right fucking ahead! Now what are those Red Sox assholes supposed to think, huh? I’ll tell you what. They think I’m gonna sign with them no matter what. We lost all our leverage because of her.”
Esperanza opened the door without knocking. “This came in this morning.” She tossed a contract on Myron’s desk. It was Jason’s. Myron began to skim through it. Esperanza said, “Put the pea brain on the speakerphone.”
Myron did.
“Jason.”
“Oh Christ, Esperanza, get the fuck off the line. I’m talking to Myron here.”
She ignored him. “Even though you don’t deserve to know, I finalized your contract. You got everything you wanted and more.”
That slowed him down. “Four hundred thou more per year?”
“Six hundred thousand. Plus an extra quarter million on the signing bonus.”
“How the…what…?”
“The Sox screwed up,” she said. “Once they printed your picture in that mailer, the deal was as good as done.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Simple,” she said. “The mailer went out with your picture on it. People bought tickets based on that. Meanwhile I called the front office and said that you’d decided to sign with the Rangers down in Texas. I told them the deal was almost final.” She shifted in the chair. “Now, Jason, pretend you are the Red Sox for a moment. What are you going to do? How are you going to explain to all those ticket holders that Jason Blair, whose picture was on your latest mailer, won’t be around because the Texas Rangers outbid them?”
Silence. Then: “To hell with your ass and legs,” Jason said. “You got the most gorgeous set of brains I ever laid eyes on.”
Myron said, “Anything else, Jason?”
“Go practice, Myron. After the way you played last night, you need it. I want to talk over the details with Esperanza.”
“I’ll take it at my desk,” Esperanza said.
Myron put him back on hold. “Nice move,” he said to her.
She shrugged. “Some kid in the Sox marketing department screwed up. It happens.”
“You read it very well.”
Her tone was an exaggerated monotone. “My heaving bosom is swelling with pride.”
