Rough Trade

night.”
    “What? You mean that little girl with the smelling
    salts?”
    “You better hope that if they ever pull you out of a car wreck in pieces that ‘little girl’ is the one they get to put you back together. She’s one of the best young trauma surgeons in the country.”
    “I may not remember that night that well, but I do know one thing, I still owe you big time.”
    “Please, don’t mention it.”
    “You don’t get it,” he replied earnestly. “When I was growing up in Alabama, we lived in a one-room house with outdoor plumbing, all seven of us. There’s not one single thing I’ve got in my life that I didn’t earn myself. When I make a mistake, I take my lumps, just like when I’m on the field. When somebody does me a good turn, I pay them back.”
    I thought of what I had been born into, the doors that open at the mere mention of my name, and looked up at the big man before me with a new sense of admiration. “I understand,” I said.
    “Then don’t forget that I owe you one. Jake the Giant always pays up. Just ask those special-team assholes,” he added with a chuckle. “In the meantime, you remember, anything you need, anything at all, you just come to me.”
    I must confess I found his offer touching—especially coming as it did from a man whose thighs were roughly the same diameter as beer kegs.
     
    * * *
     
    The police came calling as soon as the last of the mourners had left. Of course, I knew that they’d been watching the house. I just hadn’t realized what they’d been waiting for. Jeff was in his father’s study, gathering up some papers, so I went with Chrissy to the door. When the two detectives handed Chrissy the warrant, she passed it to me quickly, as if it had burned her hand.
    I read quickly, relief flooding through me. “It’s a warrant to search this house,” I told her, trying to keep my voice neutral. I didn’t want to give Eiben and Zellmer the satisfaction of knowing that I’d expected them to come for Jeff. “They also have one for your house.” I turned to the two detectives. “Do these have to be carried out right now?” I asked. “The Rendells are exhausted from the funeral.”
    “They’re not going to have to do any heavy lifting,” replied Eiben without any trace of humor. “They don’t even have to be present if they choose not to. But we aren’t leaving without executing both warrants.”
    “Could you do them simultaneously?” I asked. “I could stay out here, and Chrissy and Jeff could go back to their house. That way, at least, it won’t take all night.”
    “Suit yourself,” replied the detective, taking a toothpick from his pocket, examining it critically, and inserting it in the corner of his mouth as I stepped aside to let him pass.
    It was a hideous ending to an unspeakable day. It was also a message from the Milwaukee Police Department, one that said, loud and clear, that the gloves were now off. I whispered what few words of encouragement I could to Jeff before he and Chrissy got into the car and headed, leading a line of squad cars, back to their house to watch while men in uniform rifled through their personal possessions.
    As soon as they were gone, I slipped back into the house and checked my address book to make sure that I still had my list of Milwaukee criminal attorneys with me. I’d started keeping one after I’d gotten my first late night call from Jeff about a player who’d gotten himself into trouble. I’d never once imagined that I’d have occasion to consult it on behalf of Jeff himself.
    I went back into the house to observe the cops as they executed their warrant. Perhaps naively, I was less concerned with the possibility of planted evidence than I was about the cops lifting pieces of Beau’s sports memorabilia. I needn’t have been concerned. As I watched the cops turning the house inside out, it was obvious that the object of their search was something small and very specific. It was nearly midnight when they finally finished removing and bagging as evidence every single key they could find.
     

CHAPTER 15
     
     
    The next morning the mayor launched a public relations jihad against Jeff Rendell and the Milwaukee Monarchs organization. When I came downstairs, all three networks had preempted their regular broadcasts to carry his press conference (which had no doubt been timed for a live national feed and to be picked up by CNN). Mayor Robert V. Deutsch was nobody’s fool. A career