The Cut (27 page)

Hamilton's eyes shifted back and forth between them. “
What?
”

“We never had a shot at making the team,” Reese added. “We were never supposed to make it.”

“You're full of shit.”

“No, he's not,” Foster said. “I believe him. It all makes sense.”

Reese was nodding. “Think about it—first the grievance, then the arbitration … and now that T. J.'s lost it, he has no choice but to stay here. Between him and Maxwell, what do they need any of us for?”

Hamilton held his stare with Reese, then turned his eyes downward as he considered everything. In those few seconds, his expression changed from angry to helpless. “My God.…”

“I know,” Reese said. “I know.”

“I thought Greenwood was—”

“He wasn't in on it,” Foster cut in, not wanting Hamilton to start down this path of reasoning. “Neither was O'Leary.”

“My agent has dealt with both of them in the past,” Reese added. “I called him before I went to see Daimon, and he believes that. He says they've always been good guys. Totally above suspicion. It was Gray who knew. Gray and Palmer.”

“It was part of a big plan,” Foster said. “And so were we.”

Hamilton kept going over it in his mind, gazing into empty space. Then he began shaking his head, his eyes reddened with renewed fury. “I needed this,” he said. “I needed this bad.…”

“Hey, if it makes you feel any better,” Reese continued, “I needed it, too. I'm so in debt I've got banks and creditors calling my house every day, scaring the shit out of my wife. If I don't make this team, we'll be living in our Escalade.”

“And I wanted to get my mom and my girlfriend out of the shithole we've all lived in since I was born,” Foster added, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach at the possibility that this dream would now be put on hold once again … maybe forever. A death sentence if ever there was one.

Hamilton, still within himself, didn't respond. He sat up, folded his hands together, and stared at the floor. Foster took the opportunity of this break in the conversation to glance back at the door, half expecting it to fly open and see the Turk standing there with his damn flashlight.

“So what happens now?” Hamilton asked.

Reese said, “Well, we've come up with an idea, and we wanted you to hear it. When I first found out about this, I was pissed, too. It took all the discipline I had to keep from running in there and killing those two assholes.”

“That's what I'm going to do,” Hamilton said. “What does it matter n—”

“No, you're not,” Reese replied, and it came out like a military order.

Hamilton looked up quickly, meeting him eye to eye.

“We're not going to do it that way,” Reese went on. “We've got a much better idea.
Much
better.”

“Yeah?” Hamilton said after a few seconds. “What's that?”

Reese smiled. “Check this out.…”

*   *   *

Hamilton's room was empty when Weasel entered it two days later, but then he knew it would be. The first practice had ended, and everyone was in the dining hall, having lunch. He didn't have much time; he didn't need much. This would be a quick in-and-out. Quick, but supremely effective if successful.

He moved about silently, scanning everything as the rain spattered against the shade-covered window. The cot opposite Hamilton's was perfectly made up, its occupant long gone. Weasel went through the drawers in the student desk, then into Hamilton's bag. He even looked under both cots. No dice.

He stood, hands on hips, wondering if he had made a mistake.
No, I know what I heard.
Then where could it be? When his eyes fell upon the bathroom door, he laughed to himself.
Of course … you dumb shit
.

He went straight to the medicine cabinet. Same type as in every other dorm room, including his own—a tall steel box with a mirrored door. The glass on his had a diagonal crack running from one corner to another, whereas Reese's was perfect. The only other noticeable difference was that Reese's had a faded, rippled sticker along the bottom advertising an REM concert from eight years earlier.

Weasel pulled the door back and found what he was after; there was nothing else on the shelves. Just a plastic orange prescription bottle standing in the dead center. He took it out and read the label carefully to be sure.

Vicodin.

Beautiful.

“Let's see how well you do without these, hotshot,” he mumbled through a grin. He cheerfully tossed the bottle once in the air, then stuffed it into the pocket of his tracksuit.

His heart thumped to a halt when he stepped back out—all three were waiting for him. In that instant he knew he'd been had. There was some kind of distant fascination in the fact that he never suspected it, never even had a clue he was being set up. He considered himself a fairly intelligent individual, and he'd done this kind of thing plenty of times before, hadn't he? Yet he'd been masterfully outsmarted.

“You motherfucker,” Hamilton said with a scowl that would've scared Satan. “You slimy motherfucker.”

Glenn Maxwell, the team's quiet and cooperative “other” tight end, found himself unable to respond.

Reese, standing in front of Hamilton, was nodding. “I had a feeling it was you. I was hoping I was wrong, I really was.” They'd talked it over, figured it out for themselves. Once they had convinced each other of their mutual innocence, they worked on puzzling out who the guilty party might be. At one point Hamilton thought it might be one of the coaches—he'd seen it before.

“Piece of shit,” Foster chimed in. He stood at the back, near the half-open door.

It had been Reese's idea. He'd instructed Hamilton to make a point of talking about how much he needed the pills—how they were helping him cope with his back and he doubted he could play without them—to anyone who would listen. In practices, during meals, at meetings, everywhere. He focused on a handful of “prime suspects,” guys who seemed to have the most to gain by the sabotage. Then they simply waited.

Maxwell decided to try the offensive and see what happened. “What the hell?” he said in a lame attempt at anger. “I was just going to borrow some for myself.”

“Borrow some of what?” Reese said innocently. “We didn't know you took anything.”

Maxwell opened his mouth. Then, almost on its own, it closed again.

Fuck.

“You sonofabitch,” Hamilton said, starting forward. “I oughta break your neck right n—”

Maxwell took a fearful step back. Reese turned and held Hamilton at bay. “No, take it easy. We'll bring him to Coach Greenwood. We caught him, that's good enough.”

“Yeah,” Foster added. “I'm sure the coach will have something to say about this.”

“Uh-huh,” Hamilton cut in, “like go the fuck home.”

“Maybe. Let's find out.”

They took their prisoner by the arms and led him out of the room.

30

The Giants organization
cleared out of Albany the Friday before the final preseason game. As much of a novelty as it was to have them there at the beginning, their hosts were happy to see them go at the end. During the first few weeks, students and other fans lined up along the chain-link fences around the practice fields to watch drills, get autographs, and, if they were lucky, have a conversation or two. Now those same fences stood empty.

Practices were held on Saturday in the bubble next to the home stadium in New Jersey's Meadowlands Sports Complex. Like most bubbles, it was basically two enormous layers of vinyl, with a thin layer of insulation between them, puffed up by air pumped from outside at a pressure of no more than .05 pounds per square inch and held in place by hundreds of criss-crossing cables. Like the college fields, it was surrounded by a chain-link fence, this one with the added privacy of dark green slatting.

After the first practice, while most of the team was having lunch, Hamilton, Reese, and Foster detoured to the weight room—a magnificent, state-of-the-art facility, recently renovated by the team's strength and conditioning coach. With bright fluorescent lighting and a cement floor painted Giants blue, it featured long rows of benches, racks, weight trees, lateral raises, and pullovers, plus leg presses, incline and decline combos, treadmills, and hundreds of dumbbells. A veritable playground of bodily health.

Hamilton lay on a bench doing three-hundred-pound presses while Reese spotted him. They were both dressed in shorts and nylon tops. Hamilton huffed and puffed, his face glistening with perspiration. Reese had a white towel around his neck and wore a filthy pair of fingerless lifting gloves. Nearby, Foster wore a navy tracksuit and had just passed his third treadmill mile. A heart monitor was wrapped around his right wrist.

Jim O'Leary came in through a far door, a clipboard in one hand and a whistle bouncing off his chest. Reese nodded to Hamilton, who set the bar into its cradle and sat up. Foster also saw him and stepped off the rolling rubber platform.

Surrounded by the shining equipment, the four men clustered together. O'Leary managed a small, forced smile.

“He said we're keeping him,” the coach told them. Hamilton threw his hands up; Foster laughed and shook his head.

“Just like that?” Reese asked.

“Yeah. Dale said he wanted him to go, but Gray said no. He said he knew the playbook too well, and he was valuable at other positions. Which, I admit, is true.”

“This is a
joke.
”

“I know,” O'Leary replied. “I don't like it, either. It changes the whole dynamic of the team. It's going to cause havoc in the locker room. I don't think anyone was crazy about Maxwell before. Now they'll be looking over their shoulder every time he's around.”

Word of Maxwell's clandestine activities had spread quickly, and his teammates began treating him like he had leprosy. In response, he'd been walking around with the wide-eyed look of a child who'd lost his parents in a department store.

“Doesn't the coach care?” Foster wondered. “Doesn't it bother him that this guy is like a poison now?”

O'Leary shrugged. “Apparently not.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Or,” O'Leary added, lowering his voice, “maybe he
likes
it. Maybe this is the kind of thing he secretly admires.” Such a clear condemnation from the normally neutral O'Leary was surprising.

Hamilton lowered his head so his face was hidden. Reese took his gloves off and stuffed them into his pockets. Foster, looking away in disgust, couldn't help but laugh.

“So that's it then,” Reese said finally. “No openings for a tight end. We're
all
screwed.”

“Well, yes and no.”

“Huh?”

“Dale and I have been talking, and we've come up with an idea that might help.” Another smile, this one sly. “In tomorrow's game, we're going to feature the three of you big-time. Lots of plays, lots of action. You're all going to get the ball, make key blocks, the works. It's going to be your final showcase.”

“What difference will that m—” Foster began.

Hamilton cut him off. “So other teams can get a good look at us?”

O'Leary nodded. “You got it. You guys are gonna have the spotlight from start to finish.”

“Oh, yeah,” Reese said. “Yeah, definitely.”

“Come Monday, when the final cuts are announced, your agents' phones will be ringing around the clock. You've got thirty-one other organizations to choose from. So your hard work probably
will
pay off in the end.”

“That's great,” Reese said.

“Almost makes me wish I had an agent,” Foster added. He'd thought about getting one but wanted to wait until he made the team. That way, his business mind had decided, he'd have more leverage and could take his pick from the best people available. “I guess I'm still screwed.”

“I can recommend a few,” O'Leary told him. “It shouldn't be a problem.”

Foster said, “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Wow, I really appreciate it.”

“Sure. I'm sorry I can't do any better, but that's how it is right now. Your fate after the last preseason game will have to be
your
challenge, all of you. So get ready to play the best four quarters of your lives. It might not be important in terms of score, but it could be the key that unlocks your future. I certainly hope so.”

O'Leary turned to leave. Just before he reached the door, Reese called out, “Coach?”

“Yeah?”

“Just curious—what about T. J.?”

“What about him?”

“He still has to play here, right?”

“Yes.”

“For the same contract? The same money?”

O'Leary's smile faded a bit. “Yeah, same everything.”

“That kind of sucks. I mean, for him.”

“Yeah,” Jim O'Leary said. “It sure does.”

*   *   *

After a thorough and exhaustive search of the area during the first six months of his residency in North Carolina, Barry Sturtz managed to find just one restaurant that he really liked. It was called O'Mearas, in honor of the owner's wife (whom he eventually divorced, but by then the name had become ingrained in the public's mind, so he was stuck with it). It was a white-linen-and-crystal type of place, with soft lighting and cocktail-hour piano music. Not exactly what Sturtz had grown accustomed to during his wild youth back in Brooklyn, but it captured a certain New York ambience that, to his surprise, he missed quite a bit.

Sitting there now, in a darkened corner booth with a glass-globed candle flickering in the center of the table, he put his napkin in his lap as the waitress set down a plate of steaming veal francese, his favorite item on the menu. He'd decided this would be
his
night, a few hours all to himself, with no concern for his clients and their troubles. First his favorite restaurant, then a stop at his favorite bar. Have a few beers, shoot a little pool. He knew some of the guys there now, and none of them asked what he did for a living. (If someone did, he decided, he'd tell them he was in “career management.” That was obscure enough, yet truthful enough.) He needed this release more than he'd needed one in a long time. He was going to savor every moment.