Rough Trade

were done giving interviews about what an ingrate I am, it was too late for you to stop by and pay your respects.”
    “I was your father’s best friend. His death hit me hard,” he said. “I know this hasn’t been an easy time for you, but it’s been tough for me, too.”
    “Is that what you came to tell me?” demanded Jeff, with more authority than I’d expected. Even Bennato looked surprised.
    “No. I came to bring you something,” answered Feiss, producing a large manila envelope and holding it out to Jeff, who made no move to receive it.
    “I already heard. You’re suing me. Go ahead, but you’d better hurry. I hear there’s a long line down at the courthouse. Apparently this town is full of guys who think I’m a pansy and just can’t wait to fuck me over,” he added bitterly.
    “It’s not a lawsuit.”
    “Then what is it?”
    “It’s a letter of intent and a check from the Wauwatosa Stadium Development Corporation.”
    Jeff reached over and took the offered envelope and passed it wordlessly to me.
    “Aren’t you even going to open it?” demanded Feiss in disbelief. “Don’t you even want to know how much it’s for?”
    “I’ll have to have my attorney review it and get back to you,” replied Jeff coldly.
    “What do you mean get back to me? I’m a goddamned minority shareholder. I have a right to have a voice in this.” He looked at Bennato and gestured to include him. “We both do.”
    “Then I guess you should be the first one to know I’ve decided to move the team to L.A.,” he announced savagely. “I’m leaving for California within the hour to work out the details.”
    I had to admire Jeff. I couldn’t think of a better way to make credible the threat of moving the team than convincing Feiss. Obviously Jeff had decided that he wasn’t playing chess.
    “But your father and I had a deal,” protested Harald. “He wanted to move the team to a new stadium in the suburbs. He gave me his word!”
    “I have news for you, Harald,” declared Jeff. “My father was a shitty businessman who got into a shitload of trouble by listening to you. Whatever promises he made died with him. From here on in you’re dealing with me.”
     
    We’ve learned so much of how to behave from the movies and TV. Actors have set the standards for seduction; the Kennedy widows have shown us how to grieve... but in the process it has also crippled us, left us lost and stammering whenever we stray too far from the script. Chrissy knew how to play the supportive wife of an unfairly accused and embattled husband; what she didn’t know was what to do once he’d slid into the back of the car that would whisk him to the airport. There was no script for how to be a prisoner in your own home in a town that has overnight made up its mind to despise you.
    Reluctantly I realized that there was no way I could just leave her alone and head back to Chicago. I felt worse than tom. It wasn’t even a matter of choosing between Avco and the Monarchs. The day of the funeral I’d instructed Cheryl to insert the language that I’d dictated into the revised registration document that had been transmitted to the SEC. There was nothing to be done until we heard back.
    The problem was how best to take care of Chrissy. Which did she need more? Someone to stick with her in her terrible isolation or someone to fight to save the team from the jaws of the bank? Before she came downstairs from putting the baby down for her nap, I considered just coming out and asking her, but one look at her face, ashen and exhausted behind her makeup, gave me all the answer I needed.
    “Where shall we sit?” I asked. “How about the living room? Why don’t you get comfortable and I’ll bring you a cup of tea?”
    Chrissy nodded and drifted wearily toward the front of the house while I quickly stuck two tea bags into mugs and doused them with scalding water from the instant-hot-water faucet. The limits of my culinary skill thus tested, I followed Chrissy into the living room. I found her curled up on one end of the couch, staring off into space.
    “Do you think he could have killed him?” she asked softly as I set down her mug.
    “What?” I asked. “Do I think who could have killed whom?”
    “Jeff. Do you think that Jeff could have killed his father?”
    “Could or did?”
    “Did.”
    “What makes you ask?” I countered, ever the lawyer. “He was so strange just now. He didn’t even really say good-bye....”
    “He