“Seems that way,” Catie said. “Hal says the big teams have tried a couple different ways to break the license or weasel around it, and every time they try, they get blown out of the water in one jurisdiction or another. Apparently the player who drew up the structure document as part of the original license was also a lawyer with a specialty in international trademark and patent law, and he really knew what he was doing.”
“Huh,” her father said, having another drink of Duvel.
“But this is still kind of unusual, I take it.”
“Oh, yeah,” Catie said. “The structure of the yearly spat schedule usually seems to shake out all but the very best teams early on, and mostly the ones who’re left are the professional teams. Partly it’s because the professionals have lots of money to recruit the most talented players from the semipro and amateur teams. Seems like the semis and amateurs have been complaining about that for a long time. In the normal course of the competitions, most of the amateur teams usually fall by the wayside by the mid-season break. But not this one….”
Her father finished his beer, got up, and picked up the rag can, glancing one last time at the painting. “Well,” he said, “it’s going to be interesting to see how the rest of the season unfolds for South Florida. I would imagine the pressure on them is increasing to levels they wouldn’t normally experience as a purely amateur team.”
Catie nodded as they walked back toward the kitchen. “That’s sort of why I want to meet their team captain,” she said.
Her father raised his eyebrows at her as they went into the kitchen and he kept going, toward the door that led to the garage, the side of the house, and the sealed disposal for the flammable garbage. “So you’re telling me that it really
He was out the door before Catie could think of an appropriate response to that. Her brother was still stirring the same pot he had been stirring before, looking both intent and angry, and he was reaching for another eggon-a- dish.
“
“Blast yourself out of here,” Hal said, not looking up, “before I call whichever public agency is in charge of having a close relative’s body donated to science.”
Smiling slightly, Catie went on down the hall to her room to change out of her school clothes.
About a hundred and fifty miles away, in the top-floor lobby bar of the Marriott Hilton Parkway in Philadelphia, two men sat across a low bar table and looked down the length of Ben Franklin Parkway, toward the faux-Greek, painted portico of the art museum. Two long lines of trees stretched up the parkway toward Museum Circle, but not a breath of wind stirred them. Every leaf hung still and flat-looking in the heat and the odd light. In the west, thunderclouds were piling up in curdling heaps of white and livid blue, threatening one of those four o’clock thunderstorms to which Philly is prone in most summers. But it was some time from happening yet, and everything outside the big floor-to-ceiling windows of the bar lay in a breathless, panting stillness of heat and humidity, waiting for the storm to break.
The two men who sat there in the bar and looked down the parkway, rather than at one another, were both wearing dark clothes in cuts that were designed not to stand out in any particular way. They had taken off their sunglasses because wearing sunglasses inside was a good way to make you stand out, and they were both drinking nondescript drinks that might or might not have had alcohol in them, to the casual observer.
It was the first time the two men had met nonvirtually, and they had made the discovery about each other that so many people make in such circumstances — that the seeming each of them routinely wore was an almost exact opposite of his real appearance, and therefore could have been used to predict one another’s genuine appearance, if either one had been bothered to try. Darjan turned out to be a short fair man, a little on the bulky side, with hair surprisingly long for the styles that year; and Heming turned out to be tall and slim to the point of boniness, swarthy, and with very close-cropped dark hair. The revelation did not move either of them to like the other one anymore…and it would hardly have been possible for them to like one another less, especially since circumstances had forced them to meet nonvirtually, and thereby lose whatever cover their seemings had until now provided them.
“Anyway, we made contact with one of his people,” Heming was saying. “He was coming up here on business anyway. We’ll see him tomorrow afternoon.”
“Watch where he goes,” said Darjan.
Heming looked bemused at that. “Of course we would. But…you don’t think he’s intending to make contact with some other organization…do you?”
“If he’s smart he won’t,” said Darjan. “If he’s smart he’ll play ball strictly with us, on the one side…and leave everybody else strictly alone, on the other. But I’m sure he knows better than to go to anyone else, anyway. It’s not as if the offer he’s been made is a bad one.”
“Unless…” Heming looked suddenly concerned. “Unless he’s decided to jump into the arms of some law- enforcement organization or another….”
They both sat quite still for a moment. Then Darjan shook his head.
“He wouldn’t be so stupid. It would be suicidal. Anyway, he could tell them anything he liked, but there’d be no evidence to back the claim. We’ve been most careful to cover ourselves completely in all our dealings with him.” He lifted the frosty glass sitting on the table and sipped at it, put it down again. “No,” Darjan said at last. “I don’t see it as being a problem. Nonetheless…keep an eye on his whereabouts for the next few days, until we have a result that favors what our principals want, and things begin to settle down.”
They looked down the parkway. The leaves of the trees were starting to stir a little now. “How are the principals doing?” Heming said.
Darjan paused a good while before replying. “They’re twitching. What do you expect? Even in years when things go according to plan, they twitch. There are always factors they can’t control in the other sports they run. Weather, civil unrest, player injuries…But this is worse, in a way, because it could have been controlled further down the line, if anyone had thought it was necessary. No one did. Now…” Darjan trailed off. “Now it’s too late, and matters can’t just be allowed to take their course. Now people have to start getting involved to stop it. And the upper-ups hate having to do anything that looks like involvement. It’s too easy to leave a trace, a trail….”
The sky was darkening, going not so much gray as a weird kind of bruise-green, and slowly the wind continued to rise. “Well,” Heming said, “after tomorrow, when we lay down the law…and also the reward for doing what he’s told…you should be able to tell them to stop worrying. Between that, and what Chicago should do to them in a few days, a lot of people should be pretty relieved.”
“So the arrangements are in place for the tournament ‘cubic,’ then….”
Darjan stretched. “They’re just there for experiment’s sake at the moment. The intervention is expected to be minimal at best. We may not even need them. Shouldn’t, if Chicago delivers. If we do need to use them…” He shrugged. “We’ll use them judiciously enough that no one will suspect anything. It’s a test, as I said. For possible use elsewhere.”
They were both silent for the moment as the bar waiter came around by their table, making his rounds through the lounge space. “Anything, gentlemen?”
They shook their heads. The waiter went off to one of the few other tables that was presently occupied. It was one of the reasons the two of them were here — this place tended to be quiet in the afternoons. When he was well out of range, Darjan said, “The game is two o’clock Sunday. Without overtime and with the usual breaks between the halves, it’ll be over around four-thirty. I’ll be expecting to hear from you at five. And so will
Heming nodded. He reached down and picked up his glass again, jingling the ice cubes in it a little. “Chicago,” he said.
Darjan nodded once and held up his glass as well, but didn’t clink it with Heming’s. Heming gave him a look, waiting. Finally he drank.
A wild electric flicker came from down the parkway in the direction of the art museum, followed by a long rumble of thunder that rolled up the parkway on a sudden, gusty bluster of wind; and behind it, pelting down diagonally, came the rain.
Heming shivered, and finished his drink.
The next morning Catie got up much earlier than she strictly had to on a Saturday. Partly it was to get some chores done, for over the last few days, she had somewhat slighted her attention to the chores roster that her
