Rough Trade

don’t give him the extra time, he won’t have a choice,” I replied.
    ‘ I ’m the one who doesn’t have a choice,” declared Wallenberg, from behind his desk, his voice ripe with self-pity. “Do you have any idea how competitive the banking environment is right now? The big boys are all moving in from New York and Chicago, stealing our customers, opening up branches in the grocery stores. We have to stay lean and mean just to survive.”
    “What about a thirty-day extension?”
    “I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible either.”
    “Even if we agreed to make a good-faith payment? Let’s say a million dollars by Tuesday in exchange for an additional thirty days,” I inquired without the slightest notion of where the Monarchs could come up with that kind of cash.
    “This is a bank, Ms. Millholland, not a pawnshop. As far as the Monarchs are concerned, they’ve already proved that they’re a bad credit risk. I suggest you go back to Jeff Rendell and tell him that a deal’s a deal. He has until next Tuesday to come up with the money.”
     
    As I drove back to Chrissy and Jeff’s house I mentally kicked myself for being so stupid. I should have realized what Gus Wallenberg was up to as soon as Harald Feiss told me that the bank had required the revocation of the in vivo trust as a condition of the loan. He knew that Beau Rendell was already skating on thin ice, so Wallenberg set UP the loan so that if Beau couldn’t pay it back, the bank Would have a clear shot at the team. Next Tuesday if the Monarchs were still in default, it would be Gus Wallenberg sitting in the owner’s box.
    Not only that, but I suspected that the Monarchs’ bankruptcy would invalidate all of their existing contracts, including the ones that locked the team into millions of dollars of payments to injured or nonperforming players. Getting there might be ugly, but in the end Gus Wallenberg would control an NFL football franchise and be able to run it from a position of strength.
    I wondered whether Wallenberg saw this as an act of personal betrayal or whether in his version it was all just business. I was willing to bet that no matter what he’d convinced himself of, if it had been a dairy farm instead of a football team that I’d come to talk to him about this morning, First Milwaukee would have already granted the extension.
    As soon as I pulled into Chrissy’s driveway, I saw the unmarked Caprice parked in front of the door. Chrissy was waiting for me as well, pacing beneath the porte cochere in a chic black suit and pumps, her agitation making her oblivious to the cold.
    “You have to get in there,” she said, grabbing me by the arm and practically dragging me into the house.
    “What’s the matter?” I asked.
    “Two cops showed up a little while ago. I told them that we were on our way to the funeral home, but they said it would just take a minute. They insisted on speaking to Jeff.”
    “Why didn’t you stay with him?” I asked as I followed her quickly through the kitchen.
    “They wouldn’t let me,” she replied over her shoulder. “I don’t know what’s going on.” We stopped in front of the door to the living room. “It’s so awful,” she said in a whisper. “They’re acting like he’s some kind of criminal.”
    I pushed open the door and stepped inside. “Good morning, officers,” I announced brightly, barging right in, Elliott’s warning about the deaths of the famous not far from my mind. It was the same pair of detectives from the day before. I turned my back on them and spoke directly to Jeff, taking his hand, establishing eye contact to reassure him, willing him to calm down. “Chrissy said that you wanted to have your attorney present to advise you while you gave your statement.” There was no mistaking the look of relief on Jeff’s face. I flashed him a quick wink and then turned back to face the two homicide detectives. “I hope you haven’t gone too far without me,” I said, making myself comfortable on the couch beside my client.
    “Mr. Rendell was just telling us about the last time he saw his father,” reported Detective Eiben, less unhappy at the interruption than the fact of my presence.
    Jeff looked at me. “And I told them that the last time I saw him he was lying at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to his office.”
    “I meant to speak to,” pursued Eiben.
    “The morning he died, then. He and I spoke in his office.”
    “Just the two of you?”