The Cut (8 page)

Just maybe.

With his heart pounding and his mouth dry, he made a right off Washington Avenue and entered the State University of New York at Albany. Following the printed directions supplied by the team, he found himself cruising along University Drive West. A little farther up and he came to a sign for the player parking lot. He checked the printed instructions again to be sure it was correct. Then he followed the arrows with another right, and the lot entrance appeared up ahead. He was actually a little disappointed—it was no different from any other parking lot he had ever seen. There were open fields adjacent to it, and the beginnings of a hardwood forest in the distance. Nothing spectacular or dramatic. This was the NFL?

Reality stepped in when he reached the entrance and found it blocked by two candy-striped sawhorses.

He parked his tired little Honda and got out. A cursory inspection of the area told him this was the right one. It looked like a dealership for the überwealthy, with a generous selection of Lexuses, BMWs, and Escalades.

Daimon went over to one of the sawhorses and began dragging it out of the way.

“Hey! Get away from there!”

A man materialized between two long rows of cars. He was small and stout, fairly muscular. As he drew closer and broke into a slow jog, Daimon noticed that his head was shaven almost to the scalp, the silver hairs more like whiskers.

“What are you doing? Get the hell away from there!” He was dressed in khaki shorts and a Giants polo. He also had on white socks and sneakers, as if he were as athletic as anyone else.

“I'm supposed to be here,” Daimon said, “for training camp.”

The guard set his hands on his hips and looked him over. “Oh yeah? You don't look familiar to me.” He glanced past Daimon and appraised his current mode of transportation. “And I'm pretty sure the players drive around in something better than that. Now go on, get the hell—”

Daimon handed over the driving directions. “The team sent this to me two days ago.”

The antagonist stared hard into his victim's eyes, clearly unhappy that he was being argued with. Then he took the sheet and studied it carefully. He noted the Giants logo at the top, the formality of the language. It certainly seemed genuine. But then there was also the fax number printed at the very top, along with the words “ShopRite Store 557.” And he didn't know anything about this kid. No, he wasn't ready to stop busting his balls yet.

“What's your name?” he said without looking up.

“Daimon Foster.”

“Yeah? Never heard of you. Wait here.” He took his cell phone from the holster on his belt and walked a short distance away. The conversation took less than a minute. At one point, Daimon saw the guy's shoulders droop, as if he were disappointed that he couldn't go back and give the little punk a good thumping. He refolded the phone with a snap and replaced it in its holster. He was clearly in no hurry to return.

“Uh, look,” he said. “I'm sorry, but I didn't know we were expecting you. No one told me.”

The change in personality was so abrupt it was startling. One minute a tough-as-nails guardian of the inner circle, the next a servile, bootlicking subordinate. It was almost a disgusting thing to see, and Daimon surprised himself by feeling a little sorry for the guy.

“I'm Ted Brodie,” the guard continued, putting a hand out.

“Daimon Foster,” Daimon said again, guessing Brodie didn't catch the name the first time.

“Nice to meet you. I'm one of the Giants' operations people. Tonight I'm on parking lot duty, as you can see.”

Daimon nodded, wondering what kind of damage is done to the soul of a man in his fifties who spends his days bowing and scraping to people half his age with roughly five to fifty times his income.

“This is where I should be, isn't it?”

“Huh? Oh, yes. Yes.” Brodie hurried over and finished the job of pulling the sawhorse aside. “Sorry. Come on in, please.”

“And after I park I report to Donald Blumenthal in Chadwick Hall, is that right?”

“Yes, that's correct.”

“Okay, thanks.” Just before he got back into the car, he asked, “Do I park anywhere in particular?”

“No, wherever you like.”

“Right.”

He got back in and drove through. A strange and unexpected sensation followed—he had pierced the first layer of the league. A moment ago he was on Route 118, a thoroughfare accessible by anyone. It was still part of the public domain, so to speak. Now he was in a Privileged Area; limited access, highly restricted. He already had one person treating him like royalty, and in this small way he felt like he was no longer on the outside looking in. He
was
in. He saw Brodie replace the sawhorse in the rearview mirror. This somehow expanded his excitement—
closing and locking the door behind me.

But the ecstasy didn't last long. He might have crossed that first border, but he realized there were plenty more to go when he puttered past vehicles whose sticker prices dwarfed his current annual salary at the supermarket. The tingle down his spine vanished as swiftly as it had come.

He saw several open spots, but he couldn't bring himself to pull into any of them. One was between a gleaming black Mercedes-Benz and a Range Rover. Another was next to a Hummer H3.
I can't park here,
he thought.
I just can't.

He finally found what he considered to be the right place. At the northeast corner of the lot, there was a lone space next to a pile of gravel that looked like a miniature mountain. Probably dumped there for use in a future landscaping project. There were several openings on either side of it. Daimon chose to park on the side that provided the best cover.
Maybe they'll think I'm the landscaper,
he mused.

He parked, popped the trunk latch, and got out. The air was warm and heavy, and hundreds of summer insects were trilling and chirping in the empty fields beyond.

He caught sight of Chadwick Hall in the distance. The lights were on in the ground floor. People were in there waiting for him, he realized. They were waiting for many people, but he was one of them. He retrieved his black duffel bag, which contained the personal items the team had advised him to bring. Anything else he needed, they said, could be purchased at any one of a number of stores nearby. There was a Target, a Wal-Mart, and, ironically, a ShopRite.

He slung the bag over his shoulder and closed the trunk. Then he turned to see where Brodie was. He had apparently disappeared, returning to the shadows to wait for legitimate prey.

Surging with anticipation and more grand visions of the future, Daimon Foster started forward.

7

After parking in
one of the spots that Daimon Foster passed up, Corey Reese took his bag from the back of his Ford Expedition and cut across the lawn to Chadwick Hall. Through two pairs of glass doors, he entered a poorly lit lobby that looked as though it hadn't received a cosmetic upgrade since the seventies. On the right was a long folding table, and behind it sat two men dressed in the same outfit that Brodie wore—Giants shirt, khaki shorts, white socks and sneakers. Several neat rows of manila folders lay on the table, each with a plain white label bearing a player's name.

“Hi, I'm Corey Reese,” he said to the two men.

They did not reply immediately, but instead looked him up and down.

“Okay,” one of them said finally. Then nothing again.

“I'm here for camp, and I was told to report to Donald Blumenthal.”

The first one glanced at the second, and the second one got up slowly, as if he would rather be anywhere else right now. He was awkward and gangly, and he had an irritable, unkindly air to him that Reese sensed and didn't like. His face was unshaven and reddened by scores of burst blood vessels.

“What's the name again?”

“Reese, Corey Reese.”

Blumenthal found the folder and came around to the other side of the table.

“I'm Blumenthal. Follow me,” he said and headed down the hallway. As Reese passed by the first guy, he saw that he had a magazine in his lap.

They went past a long bulletin board decorated with a variety of leaflets and flyers—everything from school announcements to offers for tutoring, carpools, and guitar lessons—and turned left at the end. This brought them to a set of elevator doors. Corey's congenial host pushed the little button for the eighteenth floor and waited, devoting the time to cleaning out one nostril with his thumb.

“How'd the minicamps go?” Reese asked in an attempt to be friendly. It was always a good idea in this business to build alliances wherever you could.

“Oh, they were great,” Blumenthal replied dryly, watching the numbers over the doors light up one at a time as the elevator progressed downward.

“Have you been with the team a long time?”

“Yeah.”

He decided not to socialize further with this gifted diplomat, political potential notwithstanding. He stepped into the car when it arrived and followed Blumenthal out when it stopped again. Two more hallways, then they arrived at an unvarnished wooden door with the number 33 drawn at eye level in bold Magic Marker. Blumenthal twisted the knob, pushed the door back, and reached inside to flick the switch. He didn't actually enter the room, as if he might catch some kind of infection if he did.

“Here it is,” he said, “home sweet home.”

Corey stepped in and immediately caught the odor of mold. Not overpowering, but unmistakable. It reminded him of the basement in his parents' house, a place he tried to avoid as much as possible in his youth. It represented only one thing to him now—poverty.

With his stomach moving in waves, he said, “Thanks.”

Blumenthal held out the folder. “Here's the information you'll need. The cafeteria is on the first floor, by the southwest corner of the building. If you leave the campus, you have to let me or Gordon know.”

“Gordon's the guy you were with downstairs?”

“Yeah, Gordon's the guy. There's a schedule for the coming week in there. Breakfast is tomorrow at six sharp. If you don't show, you don't eat.”

“Okay.”

“Curfew is eleven o'clock every night unless Coach Gray says otherwise.”

“Got it.”

“And if you have any emergencies, you come to me. Emergencies only. If your girlfriend is in a bad mood and you want to go see her, that's not an emergency.”

“I'm married,” Corey replied. He was going to hold up his left hand and show the wedding ring, then decided against it when he noticed the guy didn't have one of his own.

“Welcome to the team.”

“Thanks.”

He listened to the fading echo of Blumenthal's footsteps until they disappeared, then he closed the door and opened all the windows.

He had been in plenty of dorm rooms in his life, first as a student, then as a player, and he had never seen one so small or depressing. The walls were plain beige, the overhead light a cold, clinical fluorescent. The floor was hardwood, but filthy and rotting in one corner. Someone—the previous occupant, he assumed—had covered it with an area rug, but one so ratty it wasn't suitable for fleas. There were two single beds on opposite sides, and they were dressed with plain, starchy-looking sheets that could've been stolen from a hospital. Reese wondered what kind of activities these mattresses had been subjected to through the years, then stopped himself. Completing the tableau was an aging yard-sale dresser and a tiny desk with a mismatched chair.

He threw his bag onto the desk and went into the adjoining bathroom. It wasn't much bigger than the elevator car, but the builders still managed to squeeze in a toilet, sink, and shower. At least it had been recently cleaned, as evidenced by the dizzying scent of bleach. The mirror had a small diagonal crack in the lower corner, and the tin shelves behind it were pitted with rust.

He ran the water until it was frigid and splashed his face repeatedly. Each time he brought his hands down, he looked at his reflection and realized with some trepidation that, yes, he was still here.

Back in the bedroom, he began unpacking. He crammed his clothes into the two lower drawers, leaving the top two for his forthcoming roommate—he prayed it was someone he knew. He'd also brought along a few items from home, a useful trick he had learned long ago. There were framed pictures of Jeanine and the kids, the alarm clock that usually sat on his nightstand, a small lamp, and two sets of bedsheets. He immediately went about changing the sheets, stuffing the coarse white ones underneath the bed. He would leave them there until he “checked out”—whenever that was.

Once everything was in place, he stood in the center of the room, hands on hips, and surveyed his kingdom.
It still looks and smells like a fucking dump,
he thought, making a mental note to buy a can of air freshener as soon as possible.

Then something else occurred to him, and it caused him to shudder violently.
If I don't make this team, my family could end up in a place just like this.
The image of his children being stuck—no,
imprisoned
—in such a place was so awful that it temporarily robbed him of his composure, and for just a moment he felt the insatiable hands of grief reaching for him. His kids' beautiful and confused little faces, tracked by tears, trying to figure out what had happened to the home they had before and asking when they could go back to it. Instead of being lulled by the measured twitching of the lawn sprinklers, instead they might have their sleep shattered by the pulse of gunfire in the streets. Instead of leaving their windows open at night to enjoy the cool autumn breezes, they'd have to lock them tight, keep the shades drawn, and pray to God no one ever decided to find out if they had anything valuable inside.

It all comes down to what happens in the next four weeks,
he told himself, and again he redirected his attention to the knee. He could feel the reconstructed ligaments again, the reset and repaired musculature. It didn't matter that it wasn't the same as it had been before, or that it never would be. All that mattered was that it
worked.