Rough Trade

Jeff. “If you can’t take your licks, you’d better stick to chess. I just try not to take it personally. It’s like the guys who knock the shit out of each other on the field. It’s all just part of the game.”
     
    Coach Bennato arrived at the door with his hair disheveled and his tie askew after he’d gotten into a shoving match with Chip Henderson, the sportscaster from Channel Four, who’d tried to intercept him in the driveway for an interview. From his tone of voice it sounded as though he’d almost enjoyed it. Bennato also had a few choice epithets for Mayor Deutsch, including a couple that I was unfamiliar with. The kind of transaction-based practice I maintained might be considered the locker room of the legal profession, but in football the locker room was really the locker room.
    From the kitchen I heard baby Katharine crying. Chrissy excused herself to get the baby out of the swing and take her upstairs to the nursery. Ever since her father-in-law’s death her house, her life, no longer were her own. The phone, the door, fruit baskets, condolence callers, and reporters—all not just unwanted, but unasked for.
    I wished Coach Bennato good luck against Green Bay, not wanting to linger. He looked exhausted and irritable rubbing his knuckles in the front hall as if still looking for a fight. The sight of him reminded me that Chrissy and Jeff were not the only ones who’d been profoundly affected by recent events. When Beau died Coach Bennato had lost his staunchest supporter. With Jeff at the helm, his future, along with everybody else’s, seemed much less secure.
    I hurried up the stairs to gather up my things. I was planning on staying only until Jack came to collect Jeff to take him to the airport. Even though my mandate from the Rendells was to find a way to keep the team in Milwaukee, I’d managed to convince Jeff that negotiating aggressively to move the team to Los Angeles was one of the key elements of my plan. To that end I’d arranged for one of the partners from the firm’s L.A. office to meet them at the airport. He was one of the attorneys who handled the Raiders’ move to Oakland and was more than capable of moving things along in a convincing manner.
    As I stood balling up my clothes and dumping them into my overnight bag, I found myself thinking how fortunate it was that Jack’s company had its own jet for their trip to the West Coast. After the mayor’s TV blitz I doubted Jeff would make it to the gate in the regular terminal alive.
    I was just carrying my overnight bag downstairs when the doorbell rang. I went to answer it, checking through the peephole to make sure it wasn’t a film crew from Hard Copy before I opened the door. As I turned the handle, I concluded that it was actually someone worse. I pulled the door open and confronted Harald Feiss.
    “I’m here to speak to Jeff,” he announced, trying to muscle his way inside.
    “Is he expecting you?” I demanded, arms crossed, deliberately blocking his path.
    “I don’t give a rat’s ass what he expects,” puffed Feiss, treating me to a whiff of last night’s gin. “He can either talk to me here or in court.”
    “Are you sure you still know the way to court?” I inquired. “I understand it’s been a long time.”
    “I don’t need to take this shit from you,” he fumed. “If Jeff won’t see me, I’m going straight down to the courthouse and filing a minority shareholder suit.”
    “Alleging what?” I demanded. Feiss owned something like 2 percent of the team, which Beau had convinced him to take in lieu of payment when money got tight.
    “That, among other things, the Monarchs Corporation has failed to hold regular board meetings and has excluded the minority shareholders from key business decisions.”
    “You can’t possibly be serious,” I exclaimed. “You and Beau went out drinking together every night. What did he need to call meetings for?”
    “Are you going to let me in or not?” huffed Feiss.
    “Let him in,” said Jeff from behind me.
    He and Bennato had just emerged from their meeting in the dining room. From the look on Bennato’s face I could tell he was surprised to see Feiss here.
    “We missed you at the house after the funeral,” continued Jeff quietly. His voice had a dangerous edge to it that I’d not heard before. I wondered whether sitting down with Bennato had finally brought home the reality that he was now the owner of the Monarchs. “I guess by the time you