Rough Trade

Guttman, the partner I’d been assigned to when I first went to work at Callahan Ross, went a step further and contended that it could be mapped out in code. Like Morse, he favored a binary representation with B for big problems and s for small. According to Guttman, most crises fell into a BssssBssssBssssBBssss pattern. Even in Avco, the IPO from hell, there were more ss than Bs. But from the morning of the funeral the buzz on the Monarchs was BBBBB!
    While Chrissy got dressed and fed the baby, I got on the phone and started waking people up. Poor Sherman, who’d spent most of the night researching case law on sex discrimination, had fallen asleep at his desk. Cheryl, grouchy at having been rousted from her bed at this hour, was nonetheless grateful for the warning. By the time she arrived at the office, everyone from CNN on down would be clamoring for a piece of me. I felt guilty about leaving her on the hot seat, but I had my own problems. When going to a funeral seems the least stressful part of the coming day, you know you’re in for one hell of a rough ride.
    All things considered, Jeff took the news well. I honestly think he had been so bludgeoned by the events of the past few days that he was beyond all feeling. As he sat at the kitchen table looking at the breakfast that Chrissy had cooked for him, but not eating it, I found myself thinking of my roommate Claudia’s patient, the man who’d had his arm amputated while pinned under a truck on Wacker Drive. Looking at Jeff’s bloodless face, I found myself wondering whether the wounds that are not physical may be the ones from which it is most difficult to recover.
    The doorbell rang and I went to answer it, mentally steeling myself for a horde of reporters. Instead, when I opened the door, I found a single messenger in a black government car delivering an envelope. It was addressed to me. I knew immediately what it was. I opened the envelope and scanned the letter. His Honor Robert Deutsch, the mayor of Milwaukee, felt that under the circumstances it would be inadvisable for us to meet at this time. I realized that this was just politics, the first step in what would no doubt end up being a very complicated dance. Still, I couldn’t help but find it disheartening.
    Just as I was about to shut the front door, I saw Jack McWhorter pull up in his black Porsche. He stepped out looking handsome and sinister, like a seductive undertaker in a B movie.
    “I came straight from the airport,” he said, slamming the car door behind him.
    “So I take it you’ve heard,” I said.
    “Are you kidding? They have huge posters at the newsstands. From the size of them you’d think we’d just invaded China.”
    “People don’t care that much about China,” I pointed out, holding the front door open to let him pass.
    “Who the fuck leaked it?” he demanded, giving me the evil eye.
    “Why Feiss?”
    “Because he wants to build a stadium in the middle of the cornfields of Wauwatosa. You know. If you build it, they will come. He leaks the news that the team may move and then starts waving the plans for his suburban stadium around and suddenly he’s a hero.”
    “You realize this makes everything much trickier at my end,” confided Jack. “I’m not sure my people ever anticipated getting involved in a situation where there would be negative publicity before the fact.”
    “Then tell them to grow up,” I replied. My entire plan for keeping the team in Milwaukee was based on the credible threat of the Monarchs moving to California. The last thing I wanted was Jack and the Greater Los Angeles Stadium Commission folding on me now. “I want you to set up a meeting for Jeff with your people in L. A.”
    “When?”
    “Tomorrow,” I answered. The sooner I managed to get Jeff out of town the better. “I’ll arrange for someone from Callahan Ross’s West Coast office to come in and start hammering out the terms of the deal. It’s put-up-or-shut-up time.”
     
    It was hardly the send-off Beau would have hoped for. Not only was there no young widow to sob prettily at the graveside, but the son he left behind to follow in his footsteps stood in the shadow of a murder indictment. As stunned as we’d been by that morning’s headline, none of us had given much thought to the fact that in addition to the news of Jeff’s apostasy, the paper had also published a map of the route the funeral cortege would take.
    From the minute our limousine pulled out of Chrissy