Rough Trade

team.”
    “I’m not saying that he necessarily should. But you and I both know that’s how the game is played. Teams squeeze their home cities in order to get them to ante up a new stadium, or else they threaten to move to a place that will. Grant you, most of the time it’s just blackmail— millionaire team owners squeezing the taxpayers for subsidies that will allow them to make even more money— but the irony of it is that in the Monarchs’ case it wouldn’t be. You really may have no choice but to move the team.”
    “Unfortunately, Dad doesn’t see it that way. Harald Feiss has got him convinced that just because Dad plays golf with Gus Wallenberg and invites him to watch the games from the owner’s box that the bank won’t make good on its threats.”
    “Who’s Gus Wallenberg?”
    “The president of First Milwaukee Bank.”
    “The bank that holds the team’s note?”
    “Yeah. It’s one of the few private, family-owned banks left in the city. But just because they haven’t let themselves be bought up by one of the big national chains doesn’t mean they don’t have to compete with them every day. Believe me, Dad’s deluding himself if he thinks that Gus cares about anything but the money. He isn’t going to cut us any slack.”
    “Why don’t you let me talk to Wallenberg?” I suggested. “Maybe I can find some way to restructure the loan or at least convince them to give you some more time.”
    Jeff shook his head.
    “Come on,” I pressed. “I do this kind of thing all the time. Ba nk ers love me.”
    “Believe me. It’s no use.”
    “At least let me give it a shot. You never know. Maybe they’ll be more willing to listen to an outsider, someone who hasn’t been part of the problem up until now.”
    “You don’t understand. If I thought there was even a one-in-a-million chance, I’d take you to talk to them right now. But I guarantee you there’s no way they will give us anything—not one more day, not one more dollar. Nothing. Not even the benefit of the doubt.”
    “How can you be so sure?”
    “Because on October 3 my father paid $ll million to buy Tamecus Johnson’s contract from the New York Jets.”
    “Tamecus Johnson? Isn’t he the wide receiver who was arrested for possession of cocaine while he was with Dallas?”
    “Cocaine in Dallas, cocaine and a concealed weapon in New York, and DUI and resisting arrest three weeks after he signed with us. At last count he’s been in rehab seven times.”
    “Let me get this straight. Your father paid to sign this guy after he was already in default with the bank?” I was beginning to see Jeff’s point about his father having some kind of death wish.
    “Yep. Dad went out and spent $ll million that he should have paid to the bank to acquire the biggest drug addict in the league. So now do you believe me when I say that when it comes to the bank, we are well and truly fucked?”
     
    * * *
     
    While Jeff made arrangements to have copies of the team documents I needed packed into boxes and brought down to my car, I went off in search of Chrissy. Even if Jeff and I both agreed that moving the team to L.A.—or at least threatening to do so—was the only way for the Rendells to get out of this mess, the first thing I needed to do was review the various agreements and covenants that governed the team. It made no sense to push the issue with Beau until we knew for certain that such a move was even possible. Of course, I was also secretly hoping that I might find something else, a loophole or some other point from which to maneuver, that had heretofore been overlooked by Feiss.
    Not that I had any idea when I was going to actually find the time to do any of this. My plate at the office was already hideously full, and my life, well, let’s just say that I was going through one of those periods where I preferred not to think about the catastrophe that passed as my personal life. That said, there was still no way that I was going to leave Milwaukee without stopping to at least say hello to Chrissy—especially not today. It wasn’t just that the whole mess with the Monarchs had me worried and feeling protective of her. On some level I felt responsible for the situation in which Chrissy now found herself.
    The truth is, before she met Jeff Rendell, Chrissy had been engaged to someone else. Malcolm Partiger was wealthy, successful, and devastatingly handsome. He was also thirty years her senior. Their whirlwind romance was