standard “No comment” to an even more eloquent and memorable “We’re completely confident we will prevail at trial.”
Winston Churchill, eat your heart out.
* * * * *
THE FIRST MESSAGE on my call sheet when I get back to the office is from Walter Simmons of the New York Giants. I have to look twice at the sheet before I can believe it. The New York Giants are calling me, Andy Carpenter.
I have been waiting for this call since I was seven years old. But is it too late? I’m almost forty; can I still break tackles like I used to? How will I handle the rigors of two-a-day practices? Can I still run the down-and-out, or is my body down-and-out? All I can do is give it a hundred and ten percent, and maybe, just maybe, I can lead my beloved Giants to victory and…
There’s just one problem. I’ve never heard of Walter Simmons. If he were involved with the football side of the operation, I would know the name. I can feel the air go out of my balloon; the love handles resting on my hips are actually starting to deflate.
I call Simmons back, and my worst fears are confirmed: He is the Giants’ vice president of legal affairs. “I’d like to talk to you about this matter with Kenny Schilling,” he says.
“You mean the matter in which he is on trial for his life?”
He doesn’t react to my sarcasm. “That’s the very one.”
He wants to meet in his office at Giants Stadium, but I’m pretty busy, so I tell him he can come to me. He doesn’t really want to, and I must admit that the prospect wouldn’t thrill me either, since my office doesn’t inspire much in the way of respect and awe. It’s a three-room dump in a second-floor walk-up over a fruit stand. Everybody tells me I need to upgrade our office space, which is probably why I don’t.
Simmons and I wrangle over the meeting location for a brief while until I come up with the perfect solution.
We can meet at Giants Stadium. On the fifty-yard line.
My drive to the stadium takes about twenty-five minutes, and a security guard is in the empty parking lot to greet me. He takes me in through the players’ entrance, which allows me another three or four minutes of solid fantasizing. Before I know it, I’m on the field, walking toward the fifty-yard line. A man who must be Walter Simmons, dressed in a suit and tie, walks from the other sideline to meet me at midfield. It’s as if we’re coming out for the coin toss.
A group of players is on the field, in sweat suits without pads. They’re throwing some balls around, jogging, doing minor calisthenics. A placekicker booms field goals from the forty-yard line. These are no doubt voluntary off- season workouts; the serious stuff is a good month away.
Of all the people on the field, Walter Simmons is the only one I could outrun. He looks to be in his early sixties, with a healthy paunch that indicates he’s probably first on line for the pregame meal. He’s got a smile on his face as he watches me react to these surroundings.
“Not bad, huh?” he asks. “I come down here fairly often. It brings me back to my youth.”
“Were you a football player?”
He grins again. “I can’t remember. At my age, after lying about my athletic exploits for so many years, I’m not sure what’s true and what isn’t. But I certainly never played in a place like this.”
One player on the field overthrows another, and the next thing I know there is a football at my feet. I pick it up to throw it, glancing toward the sidelines just in case a coach is watching. This could be my chance.
I rear back and throw the ball as far as I can. It is the kind of effort for which the term “wounded duck” was coined. Perhaps even more accurately, it flops around in the air like an exhausted fish on the end of a hook, then falls unceremoniously to the ground fifteen yards in front of the intended receiver. Neither Simmons nor the receiver laughs at me, but I still want to dig a hole in the end zone and lie down next to Jimmy Hoffa.
“That’s what happens when I don’t warm up,” I say.
“How long would it take you to get warm?”
I shrug. “I should be ready about the time of the next eclipse. What’s on your mind?”
What’s on his mind of course is Kenny Schilling. The Giants are in the uncomfortable position of having given him a huge contract, one befitting a star, two weeks before he is arrested for murder. Not exactly a PR man’s dream.
But Simmons says that the Giants are standing behind him, financially and otherwise, and are in fact paying his salary while he deals with the accusations. “He’s a terrific person and has never given us a day of trouble since we drafted him.”
“And he can run the forty in 4.35,” I point out.
He nods at the truthfulness of that statement. “Of course. We’re a football team. If he was built like me or threw the ball like you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“I’m still not sure why we are having it,” I say.
“Because we can be helpful to you,” he says. “The league and the Giants have substantial security operations. We might possibly have better access to certain people than you would. We are prepared to do whatever we can, within reason, of course.”
“And in return?” I ask.
“We would like a heads-up if things are going to break in such a way that the organization will be embarrassed.”
“While respecting lawyer-client confidentiality.” He’s a lawyer; he knows I’m not going to reveal more than is proper.
“Of course.”
We shake hands on the deal, which I am willing to do since I’ve given up absolutely nothing and gotten something in return. I decide to test him right away. “Can you get me a list of the players Kenny was closest to?”
“I’ll have our people get started on it. We’ll also put out the word that they should talk to you, but of course, we can’t force them.”
I push it a little further. “Actually, you do a lot of personal research on players before you draft them, right?”
“You’d be amazed how much.”
“Then I’d like everything you have on Kenny.”
“No problem,” he says.
I’m starting to like this feeling of power. “Any chance you can get the information the Jets have on Troy Preston?”
“I’ll try. I think that information might be helpful. I don’t know the specifics, but I believe Preston was a problem.”
I press him for more information, but he professes not to have any. I thank him for his time, then turn with a flourish and trot to the sidelines, imagining the crowd roaring in appreciation of my spectacular touchdown pass.
I’ve got a really strong imagination.
When I get back to the office, Tanya Schilling, Kenny’s wife, is waiting for me. I had asked Edna to set up an appointment with her, but I characteristically forgot about it.
Tanya is a strikingly beautiful young woman and one who radiates a strength that belies her diminutive size. “Mr. Carpenter, I know you hear this from every client you’ve ever had, but I’m going to say it anyway. Kenny is innocent. He simply could not have done this.”
I know that she is telling me the truth as she sees it, but that doesn’t make it the truth. “He’s got an uphill struggle,” I say.
She nods. “Let me tell you a story about Kenny. When he was eight years old, he woke up one morning in his apartment and found the police there. His mother had reached under her bed and was bitten during the night by a neighbor’s pet snake. It had gotten loose and somehow made it into the Schillings’ apartment. The police asked her why she didn’t call them during the night when it happened, and she said it was because in the dark she assumed
