Kingsley moved quickly for a man his age. He was out of his chair and around the desk before Bobby could stand. He grabbed Bobby by the shirt collar and yanked him to his feet. Their faces were jammed together, and Bobby could smell the coffee on his breath. 'You've got ten seconds to apologize and get the hell back to your office or I'll thrash your hide before firing you.'
Bobby felt lightheaded and giddy. He laughed, which seemed to infuriate Kingsley even more. 'What's so damn funny, you jackass!'
'You are, Martin. You're a bully and a blowhard, and you don't scare me.'
'You self-righteous son-of-a-bitch!' Kingsley shoved Bobby into a shelving unit. Trophies tumbled to the floor, and a football-shaped crystal ornament shattered on its first bounce.
Bobby rebounded from the shelves, his knees buckling. When he regained his balance, his vision was filled with the sight of Kingsley's fist coming toward his chin. He slipped his head to the right, and the punch grazed his temple. Instinctively, Bobby threw a punch of his own, but it was a looping right hand with too little power behind it.
'You swing like a girl!' Kingsley taunted him, assuming a boxer's pose with a left hand lead, standing straight up like some bare knuckled-champion from the Nineteenth Century. 'C'mon girlie. Let's see what you've got.'
All the pent-up frustrations ignited a fire inside Bobby. He wanted to hit Kingsley, wanted to scar him, wanted him to feel the pain of Janet Petty. He snapped out a left jab that caught Kingsley on the cheekbone and rocked him backwards. Kingsley responded with a left hand of his own, but Bobby blocked it. They bobbed and weaved a moment in imitation of countless prizefighters, and then Bobby flicked a straight left that glanced off Kingsley's forehead.
Before he could follow up, Kingsley dug a short right hook into Bobby's gut. Bobby gagged and stepped back, bending at the waist, sucking for air.
'You're soft!' Kingsley ranted. 'You've got the belly of a sow.'
Bobby hunched his shoulders, lowered his head and barreled into the older man. He knocked Kingsley backwards, and they toppled onto the desk, then slid to the floor amidst overturned files and fluttering papers. Bobby bear-hugged Kingsley who flailed away at him, unable to get any power into the short punches, but finally loosening Bobby's grip by gouging both thumbs into his eyes.
Pain shot through Bobby's skull as he scrambled to get to his feet. Blinking furiously, he turned toward Kingsley, afraid he was about to be sucker punched. Instead, Kingsley was reaching into a desk drawer. A second later, he pointed an ancient long-barreled Colt. 45 at Bobby. The gun looked like a cannon and was shaking visibly in Kingsley's hand. If Kingsley's trigger finger twitched, Bobby feared he'd have a hole the size of a fist in his chest.
'You're not going to shoot me, Martin.'
'Not today, maybe. Today, I'm just gonna-'
'You can't,' Bobby said. 'I quit.'
10
Bobby stormed out, making one stop on his way to the parking lot, liberating a bottle of Jack Daniel's from the antique sideboard in his own office. He got into the Lexus, drove to a donut shop, and then to the stadium, empty except for three workers repairing the artificial turf. Bobby carried his bottle of bourbon and bag of cream- filled donuts into the stands and climbed to the upper deck, shaded by the partial roof.
He sat there for hours, working it over in his mind. He had taken a stand on principle. But was that enough? Would that salve his soul? As the amber liquid warmed his insides, the more grandiose his plans became. He would write a book disclosing the evils of corporate greed, the sham of the justice system, the hypocrisy of the league. He would lecture at great universities, offering himself as a witness to society's failings. He remained sober long enough to realize that his fantasies were self-indulgent meanderings.
He was out of a job. Or was he? Christine would try to salvage the situation, have the men shake hands and make up.
What should I do? How can I do what's right for me when it might not be right for Chrissy and Scott?
All he knew was that he couldn't go back to the status quo.
His secretary called him three times on the cellular, telling him that Larry Walters, the prosecutor, was trying to reach him. Probably wanted to know when he would surrender Jackson. It didn't feel as if he'd quit his job. Nobody knew about it except Kingsley and him. Just after noon, as the sun peeked through the hole in the stadium's roof, the phone rang again.
'Bad news,' the Assistant District Attorney said when Bobby answered.
'Is there any other kind?' Bobby said.
'Janet Petty got her hands on a bottle of sedatives and attempted suicide last night.'
'Oh no. Oh God no.' The news jolted him out of his boozy haze. He felt like a tree that had been struck by lightning, his limbs splintered, his trunk blazing with pain. His mouth, at first tasting sour from the bourbon, now seemed filled with ashes.
'She's gonna make it, though she'll have a five-alarm headache when she comes to. And brain damage can't be ruled out. This pretty much complicates the bond hearing, and I didn't want to sandbag you when you brought him in.'
'I won't be bringing him in,' Bobby said. 'I come to buy Nightlife, not to represent him.'
Christine hobbled into the kitchen and was unpacking the takeout Thai cartons when she heard Scott call from the den.
'Daddy's on TV!' he cried out, excitedly.
It had been a long day, and she hadn't seen Bobby since he left the house early that morning. She had still been on the fringes of sleep, but she remembered him leaning down and kissing her. What had he said?
'I love you, Chrissy. No matter what happens, I love you and pray that you'll always love me.'
Or had she dreamed that? Just before noon, she had buzzed his office to see if he wanted to grab lunch, but his secretary said she hadn't seen him. Chrissy tried her father's office, but he had been tied up in meetings with Nightlife Jackson's agent and a crisis team of P.R. experts.
Now she walked into the den, licking her fingers, tasting the garlicky sauce of the chopped pork Nam Sod. Suddenly, everything was wrong. Scott had tears in his eyes. Bobby's face filled the entire screen, a microphone under his chin. He was sweating, an unruly tousle of brown hair falling into his eyes, which leapt from side-to- side.
'The Dallas Mustangs aren't American's Team, they're America's Most Wanted,' Bobby thundered. 'They're coke-sniffing, bar-busting bullies, bums, and rapists.'
'All of them?' a reporter asked.
'Of course not. But enough for loyal fans to question why they put up with criminality, immorality, violence against women, and a general disregard of the rules the rest of us must live by.'
Omigod, no! Bobby, don't do this!
From out of camera range, a flurry of questions were shouted. 'What about Nightlife Jackson?'
'He's a dangerous, brutal, multiple rapist who should be put away,' Bobby said. 'He'd be in jail now if I hadn't suborned perjury in his first case.'
A gasp went through the throng of reporters who then buzzed with more questions, but in the babble, the words were indecipherable. Bobby reached into a briefcase and pulled out a stack of documents that he began handing out to the reporters who fought for their copies.
'I've prepared a list of cases in which my actions were unethical and numerous incidents involving the players that were covered up,' he said.
Christine's breath caught in her throat. She felt as if hot knives had pierced her heart. For a moment, her anguish was so intense, it was if the man she was watching-the man she loved-had died in front of her eyes.
