"You know he is."

"Not if he can't handle Phoebe."

Dan slowly released him, and his voice was dangerously quiet. "Exactly what are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying I've got your butt in a sling, Dan, because right now the only person she trusts who knows a damned thing about football is me. And I got fired."

"You deserved to be fired! You weren't doing your job."

"I got her to sign those contracts the first day, didn't I? From what I hear, nobody else has been able to do that much."

"You had time after Bert died to prove yourself, and you blew it. Nothing got done."

"I didn't have the authority to act because Phoebe wasn't returning my phone calls." He lit a fresh cigarette and had the nerve to smile. "But I'll guarantee she returns them now."

Dan's temper ignited, and he grabbed a fistful of Ronald's fancy European lapels. "You son of a bitch. You're sleeping with her, aren't you?"

He had to give the kid credit. His complexion went a little pale, but he held his ground. "That's none of your business."

"No more games. What are you after?"

"You're not stupid, Dan. Figure it out for yourself."

"You're not getting your job back."

"Then you're in big trouble because Phoebe won't do anything unless I tell her to."

Dan clenched his teeth. "I ought to beat the shit out of you."

Ronald swallowed hard. "I don't think she'd like that. She's crazy about my face."

Dan thought furiously, but he could only come to one conclusion. Ronald had him pinned behind the line of scrimmage and nobody was open. It went against his grain to fall on the ball, but he didn't seem to have a choice. Gradually, he let go of the kid's shirt. "All right, you've got your job back for now. But you'd better control her or I'll have your ass hanging inside out from the yard markers. Do you understand me?"

Ronald flicked his cigarette away and then lifted the collar of his sport coat with his thumbs. "I'll think about it."

Dumbfounded, Dan watched him walk away.

By the time Ronald reached his car, he had sweated right through his jacket. Dan! He'd called the coach Dan and he was still alive. Oh, God. Oh, Lord.

Between the cigarettes and a rapid heartbeat, he'd begun to hyperventilate. At the same time, he'd never felt better in his life. Settling into the driver's seat, he grabbed the phone. After he fumbled with the buttons for a few moments, Phoebe came on the line.

He gasped for breath and pushed the videotape of Risky Business she had given him out from beneath his hip.

"We did it, Phoebe."

"You're kidding!" He could envision her wide, generous smile.

"I did exactly what you said." He gasped. "And it worked. Except now I think I'm having a heart attack."

"Take some deep breaths; I don't want to lose you now." She laughed. "I can't believe it."

"Neither can I." He was beginning to feel better. "Let me change my clothes and wash this grease out of my hair. Then I'll be in."

"It won't be a minute too soon. We've got a ton of work here, and I don't have the faintest idea what to do with any of it." There was a short pause. "Uh-oh. I've got to go. I hear an ominous set of footsteps coming my way."

Quickly hanging up, she grabbed her makeup mirror with a shaking hand and lifted her pinky to her eyebrow just as Dan exploded into her office. She caught a glimpse of her secretary's startled face behind him before he slammed the door.

Her office window faced the practice fields, so she should have been used to his aggression by now. She'd seen him throw clipboards and charge onto the field when he didn't like someone's performance. She'd watched him hurl his unprotected body at a player in full equipment to demonstrate some mysterious football move. And once, when she'd been in the office late and all the players had left, she'd watched him do laps around the track wearing a sweat-stained T-shirt and a pair of gray athletic shorts that had revealed a set of powerfully muscled legs.

Swallowing hard, she gazed up at him innocently. "Oh, my. The big bad wolf just blew my door down. What did I do now?"

"You win."

"Goody. What's the prize?"

"Ronald." He grit his teeth. "I've decided I won't stand in your way if you want to hire him back."

"That's wonderful."

"Not from my viewpoint."

"Ron isn't quite the incompetent you seem to think he is."

"He's a weenie."

"Well, you're a hot dog, so the two of you should get along just fine."

He scowled, and then he let his eyes roam all over her with an insolence he had never before displayed. "Ronald sure figured out how to get what he wanted from you. But maybe there's something you should know. Smart businesswomen don't sleep with the men who work for them."

Even though she hadn't done anything wrong, the jab hurt, and she had to force herself to give him a silky smile. "Jealous I chose him instead of you?"

"Nope. I'm just afraid you'll move on to my players next."

She clenched her fists, but before she could respond he had stalked from her office.

Ray Hardesty stood in the shadows of the pines outside the cyclone fence and watched Dan Calebow stride back onto the practice field. Ray had to be at work soon, but he made no move to leave. Instead, he coughed and lit another cigarette, disturbing the butts already on the ground as he shifted his feet. Some of them were fresh, but others had disintegrated in last week's thunderstorms, leaving behind only the swollen, yellowed filters.

Every day he told himself he wasn't going to come here again, but he came back all the same. And every day when his wife asked him where he was going, he said True Value. He never came home with any hardware, but she kept on asking. It had gotten so he could barely stand the sight of her.

Ray rubbed the back of his hand over his stubbly jaw and wasn't surprised when he felt nothing. The morning the police had come to the house to notify him that Ray Junior had died in a car crash, he'd stopped being able to tell the difference between hot and cold. His wife said it was temporary, but Ray knew it wasn't, the same way he knew he'd never be able to watch his son play football for the Stars again. Ever since that morning, his senses had been confused. He'd watch television for hours only to realize he'd never turned up the volume. He'd pour salt into his coffee instead of sugar and not notice the taste until his mug was nearly empty.

Nothing was right any more. He'd been a big shot when Ray Junior was playing for the Stars. The guys he worked with, his neighbors, the boys at the bar, everybody had treated him with respect. Now they looked at him with pity. Now he was nothing, and it was all Calebow's fault. If Ray Junior hadn't been so upset about getting cut by the Stars, he wouldn't have driven through that guardrail. Because of Calebow, Ray Senior couldn't hold his head up any longer.

For months Ray Junior had been telling him how Calebow had it in for him, accusing him of drinking too much and being some kind of goddamn druggie just because he took a few steroids like everybody else in the NFL. Maybe Ray Junior had been a little wild, but that's what had made him a great player. He sure as hell hadn't been any goddamn druggie. Hale Brewster, the Stars' former coach, had never complained. It was only when Brewster had been fired and Calebow had taken over that the trouble started.

Everybody had always commented on how much he and his son looked alike. Ray Junior'd also had a misshapen, prizefighter's face, with a big nose, small eyes, and bushy brows. But his son hadn't lived long enough to get thick around the waist, and there hadn't been any gray in his hair when they'd buried him.

Ray Senior's life had been filled with disappointments. He thought about how he wanted to be a cop, but when he'd applied, it seemed like they wouldn't take anybody but niggers. He'd wanted to marry a beautiful woman, but he'd ended up with Ellen instead. At first even Ray Junior had been a disappointment. But his old man had toughened him up, and by the kid's senior year in high school, Ray had felt like a king as he sat in the stands and watched his boy play ball.

Now he was a nobody again.

He began to cough and it took him almost a minute to get the spasms under control. The doctors had told him a year ago to stop smoking because of his bad heart and the trouble with his lungs. They hadn't come right out and told him he was dying, but he knew it anyway, and he didn't much care anymore. All he cared about was getting even with Dan Calebow.

Ray Senior relished every Stars' loss because it proved the team wasn't worth shit without his kid. He had made up his mind that he was going to stay alive until the day everybody knew what a mistake that bastard had made by cutting Ray Junior. He was going to stay alive until the day Calebow had to eat the dirt of what he had done.

The smell of scotch and expensive cigars enveloped Phoebe as she entered the owner's skybox the following Sunday. She was doing what she had sworn she wouldn't-attend a football game-but Ron had convinced her that the owner of the Stars couldn't miss the opening game of the regular season.

The hexagonal Midwest Sports Dome had actually been constructed in an abandoned gravel quarry that sat at the center of a hundred acres of land just north of the Tollway. When the Stars weren't playing, the distinctive glass and steel dome was home to everything from religious crusades to tractor pulls. It had banquet facilities, an elegant restaurant, and seats for eighty-five thousand people.

"This is an expensive piece of real estate," Phoebe murmured to Ron as she took in the owner's sky box with its two television sets and front wall of windows looking down on the field. She had learned that skyboxes in the Midwest Sports Dome were leased for eighty thousand dollars a year.