Nick veered off the highway without slowing and screeched to a stop at a red light. Scott turned to Nick.
'Were they happy together?'
'Who?'
'Rebecca and Trey.'
Nick shrugged. 'Traveling first-class around the world, staying in five-star hotels, buying everything they saw-what's not to be happy about?'
'Did Trey love her?'
'That's a hard question when it comes to pro athletes. Their one true love is the guy in the mirror. But, yeah, I think he did.' He gave Scott a sympathetic glance. 'Gotta be tough to hear that.'
'I'm a big boy. Was he going to marry her?'
'Never mentioned it to me.' Nick cut a glance at Scott. 'Seems odd, you defending her when she dumped you for Trey.'
'It's called loyalty.'
Nick snorted. 'You wouldn't last long as a sports agent. You learn pretty quick that athletes got the loyalty of a pit bull. They cheat on their agents, their wives, and their taxes. So you take care of number one.'
'Agents have a fiduciary duty, Nick. The law says you've got to put your clients' best interests ahead of your commissions.'
Nick laughed. 'The law never represented a pro athlete.'
Nick steered the Beemer into a high-end suburban community in far north Houston featuring tall brick walls and a waterfall on either side of the entrance, one of the many 'gated golf-course communities' that had sprung up across the nation during the easy money years, places promising private country clubs and security guards patrolling the streets 24/7 and the new American Dream: a home in a neighborhood sealed off from the rest of America, like the Green Zone in Iraq. They drove down wide paved streets of brand-new ten-thousand-square-foot homes shaded by tall pine trees and sporting foreign cars in the circle drives; it wasn't River Oaks where the old money of Houston resided, but neither was it the Fifth Ward where no money resided. This was where the new money of Houston called home.
Nick wheeled the Beemer through the open gates of a country club with a big banner that read 'Houston Classic.' Nick stopped at a barricade manned by two rent-a-cops. He flashed his credentials like an FBI agent, and he got the same respect; the guards scrambled to remove the barricade. Nick accelerated across the parking lot and turned into a vacant space. The lot looked like a Cadillac showroom.
'Courtesy cars,' Nick said. 'Players fly into town on private jets, get a free Caddy for the week, free hotel, free food, free everything. Nice life, long as you can stay on tour. But there's always a younger hotshot wanting to take your place in the Caddy.'
Or Ferrari.
They got out and walked toward the entrance gate.
'Back in the days of Arnie and Jack,' Nick said, 'celebrities sponsored pro golf tournaments. You had the Bob Hope, the Bing Crosby, the Frank Sinatra, the Andy Williams… then the tour went corporate. Now you've got the Mercedes-Benz, the Sony, the BMW, the Barclays, the Deutsche Bank, the Stanford St. Jude…'
He chuckled.
'Tour had to drop Stanford from the tournament name when the Feds indicted him for running a seven- billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. Allen Stanford, he lives here in Houston-actually, he's living in jail until his trial-he bought himself a knighthood on some Caribbean island, calls himself 'Sir Allen.' Guy went to college in Waco, now he thinks he's a fucking Knight of the Round Table. Can't you see him in federal prison, demanding the other inmates call him Sir Allen? Those bad boys gonna show him To Sir with Love. That was an old movie I saw on cable.'
Nick again showed his credentials at the entrance gate, and they entered the tournament grounds. The world might be mired in the worst recession since the Great Depression and Texas in the worst drought in half a century- lakes were drying up, water was rationed and cost more than gasoline, the land was so parched and brittle that one cigarette tossed out of an automobile could torch the entire state-but the recession had apparently exempted pro golf and the drought this golf course. It looked like an oasis in the Texas desert with tall pine trees lining lush green fairways and a blue lake sparkling in the distance. A plantation-style clubhouse that harkened back to the Old South stood off to one side and massive white tents to the other. A red blimp hovered overhead in the blue sky, colorful neon signs adorned the tents, loud cheers erupted every few minutes, and the air smelled of popcorn and cotton candy, all of which gave the place a circus-like atmosphere. Nick abruptly stopped and spread his arms, his face that of a kid who had just spotted the clowns.
'What do you see, Scott?'
Scott glanced around. 'Golfers, caddies, fans…'
Nick was shaking his head. 'You see WM squared.'
'WM squared? What's that?'
'W-M-W-M. W hite m en w ith m oney. Affluent middle-aged white men, thirty-five to sixty-five, the target demographic for sports advertising. That's where your sports dollars are today, Scott, and that means pro golf. No other sport can offer advertisers WM squared. I made that up myself.'
Scott now noticed that the fans were in fact white and most were middle-aged men. There were no people of color in sight. It looked like Highland Park Day at the tournament.
'What about football, basketball, baseball? Those are popular with white men.'
Nick snorted. 'Working-class white men. WM squared are lawyers, doctors, CEOs-white men with incomes in excess of two hundred fifty thousand-the white guys Obama's raising taxes on.' He chuckled. 'This place could pass for the fucking Republican National Convention, especially the players. They hate paying taxes more than making a double-bogie.' He shook his head. 'You ain't gonna find anyone out here who voted for Obama, except maybe the guy shining shoes down in the locker room.'
They walked on, Nick pointing out the sights, past the white tents-'Merchandise tent… margarita tent… media tent'-the first tee and the ninth green, and white, well-dressed, and well-behaved fans. This was not the raucous atmosphere of a pro football or basketball game with loud drunken fans painted in team colors and taunting the opposing players with profanities. These fans waited patiently for their favorite golfers' autographs and politely fell silent when a player teed off or putted. Genteel applause greeted putts that dropped and empathetic groans putts that did not. The scene seemed from another sports era, perhaps not quite like the old newsreels of Yankee games with white fans dressed in their Sunday best, but the fans were still-
'White and polite,' Nick said. 'That's the way WM squared want their sports, Scott. And that means golf. Go to a major league baseball game today, it's like you're at a fucking bullfight in Juarez. All the players are named Rodriguez and speaking Spanish. WM squared don't speak Spanish, Scott.'
Nick waved to a young golfer strutting past followed by his entourage.
'And football and basketball players, they're all homeboys from the 'hood, foul-mouthed, chest-pounding, crotch-grabbing, gun-packing, tattooed-and-taunting homies who brought the 'hood culture to the pros.' Nick shook his head. 'WM squared don't like homies, Scott.'
Nick acknowledged another golfer trailed by kids seeking autographs.
'Course, what do you expect? You give a twenty-year-old black kid from the ghetto ten million in cash 'cause he can dunk a basketball or catch a football, what do you think he's gonna do? Invest in a retirement account with Schwab? Hell, no. He's gonna bling himself out with a chrome-plated Hummer and gold jewelry and high-powered guns, then go back to the 'hood and show off to his homies. He ain't suddenly gonna start wearing Tommy Hilfiger.'
Nick was amused by his own words.
'Which leaves pro golf to provide the white-and-polite, English-speaking, non-violent, suburban sports experience for WM squared.'
'Tiger's black.'
Nick dismissed that comment as if he were annoyed by a gnat.
'Tiger transcends race. He's the best there ever was and he's a marketing machine because he's programmed like a fucking computer-at least until he drove his life into a tree.' Nick shook his head. 'I preach to my athletes all the time: 'Never text your mistresses!' Do they listen? No, they don't.' He sighed. 'But Tiger, he'll be back. WM squared will forgive him because he ain't a homie-no trash talking, no tattoos, no guns. He always acted
