Win picked up the receiver and handed it to Myron.
“Hello.”
“Hey, Myron, it’s Swindler. I just went over the two samples you gave me.”
Myron had given Swindler the envelope
“Well?”
“They match. It’s her or a very professional forgery.
Myron felt his stomach dive. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“Thanks for calling.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
Myron handed the receiver back to Win.
“A match?” Win asked.
“Yep.”
Win tilted back in his chair and smiled. “Yowzer.”
Chapter 11
Myron ran into Ricky Lane in the corridor. He hadn’t seen him in three months. Ricky looked a lot bigger. The Jets would be pleased.
“What are you doing here?” Myron asked.
“I made an appointment with Win,” Ricky said with a big grin. “Just like my agent advised.”
“Good to see you listen to your agent.”
“Always. The man is brilliant.”
“And he never argues with a client.”
Ricky laughed. “Say, I heard Christian got locked out of camp.”
News traveled fast. “Where did you hear that?”
“The FAN.”
WFAN was New York’s all-sports radio station. “Have you spoken to him lately?”
Ricky made a face. “Christian?”
“Yeah.”
“Not since my last college football game, what, year and a half ago.”
“I thought you were friends.” Myron had, in fact, assumed that Ricky had recommended his services to Christian.
“We were teammates,” Ricky replied steadily. “We were never friends.”
“You don’t like him?”
Ricky shrugged. “Not really. None of us did.”
“Who is ‘us’?”
“Guys on the team.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Long story, man. Not worth telling.”
“I’d be interested.”
“Put it like this,” Ricky said. “Christian was a little too perfect for most of us, okay?”
“An egomaniac?”
Ricky paused, considering. “Not really. I mean, to be straight, I guess a lot of it was jealousy. Christian wasn’t just good. Shit, he wasn’t even just great. He was incredible. Best I ever seen.”
“So?”
“So he expected the same from everyone else.”
“He got on people’s case when they made mistakes?”
Ricky paused again, shook his head. “No, that ain’t it either.”
“You’re being a tad obtuse, Ricky.”
Ricky Lane looked up, looked down, looked left, looked right, looked very uneasy. “I can’t explain it,” he said. “It’s going to sound like a lot of griping, but guys weren’t crazy about all the attention he was getting. I mean, we won two national championships, and the only guy they ever talked to was Christian.”
“I heard those interviews. He always gave his teammates all the credit.”
“Yeah, a real gentleman,” Ricky replied with more than a hint of sarcasm. “All that ‘it’s a team effort’ bullshit just made the press love him even more. Guys on the team thought he was a promo-hog, you know? His own best PR firm. They blamed him for being too popular.”
“Did you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Truth was, I just didn’t really like him. We had nothing in common except football. He’s a pure Midwest white-boy. I’m a city-slicking black man. It ain’t a winning combination.”
“That’s all it was?”
He gave a half-shrug. “I guess so. But man, this is all ancient history. I don’t know why I brought it up. It don’t matter no more. Christian just didn’t fit in, okay. He was a nice guy, I guess. He was always polite. But that don’t play so well in a locker room, you know?”
Myron knew. Juvenile, sexist, homophobic bantering-that was the stuff of locker-room popularity.
“I gotta go, man. Win will be wondering where I am.”
“Okay. I’ll see you around.”
Ricky had almost turned away when Myron thought of something else. “What can you tell me about Kathy Culver?”
Ricky’s face blanched. “What about her?”
“Did you know her?”
“A little, I guess. I mean, she was a cheerleader and dated the quarterback. But we never hung out or anything.” He looked very unhappy now. “Why you asking?”
“Was she popular? Or was she hated too?”
Ricky’s eyes darted about like birds trying to find a safe place to land. “Look, Myron, you always been straight with me, I always been straight with you, right?”
“Right.”
“I don’t want to say nothing else. She’s dead. Might as well let her be.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. I just don’t like talking about her, okay. It’s kinda creepy. I’ll see you later.”
Ricky hurried down the corridor as if Reggie White were chasing him. Myron watched him. He debated following him but decided against it. Ricky would say no more today.
Chapter 12
Esperanza stuck her head in the door. “Someone-or something-is here to see you.”
Myron held up a silencing hand. The headset had been on since his return to his office. “Look, I have to go,” he said. “See if you can get him upgraded to first class. He’s a big guy. Thanks.” He took off the headset. “Who is it?”
She made a face. “Aaron. He didn’t give a last name.”
He didn’t have to. “Send him in.”
Seeing Aaron was like falling into a time warp. He was as big as Myron remembered, as big as the lummox in the garage. He was dressed in a freshly pressed white suit, but he wore no shirt with it, displaying plenty of tan pectoral cleavage. He wasn’t wearing socks either. Nifty haircut, the swept-back look a la Pat Riley. A saunter for a
