"You know you're coming out of a rough patch there, Zee." Lowe had some of his imported mineral water. "The money isn't like it would be in the old days. And there's the salary caps, the free agent finagling and so forth."

"What you figure your 15 percent comes to?" I crossed my legs.

He chuckled in his throat. "Stadanko will go seven small this year. And if you perform the way we know you will, then two large next year will not be crazy to consider. Plus, I have a couple of possible endorsers considering."

Considering I don't get busted with anything up my nose or my zipper down when the video is rolling. "I was hoping we could do better."

The waiter brought our salads. "Zee, you were making minimum wage with the Dragons. This isn't bad." He pierced a cherry tomato with his fork.

No it wasn't. Seven hundred grand would keep a lot of shit from rainin' down on me. But I was expected to complain and he was expected to promise me all kinds of perks. We ate and did the back and forth what if I asked for this, maybe he could get that.

Afterward, we shook hands. He would get a contract to me tomorrow. And he picked up the tab. That hadn't happened in a long time.

I wondered what Wilma would say if I dropped in on her at the office, but good sense told me not to do that. No reason making it seem like I wanted anything to do with their scam when all I really wanted was another taste of that educated trim of hers. Better to get my mind on straight and keep it there.

I pulled into my driveway and Fahrar parked right behind me. I knew it was him before he got out of his tired Toronado. The half-Landau top was old and cracked like alligator skin, and the tires were mismatched like his eyes. Damn car must have been more than twenty-five years old.

I can't believe they let you drive that piece of crap. Don't the LAPD have standards?"

"My lieutenant likes us to blend in." He came out to the car wearing his hat. His light-colored eye looked wet. "You've been all the rage on the sports radio this morning."

"What is it, Fahrar? You gonna keep your weak-ass Columbo routine goin' until I break down and cry like a bitch? You ain't got shit and you never will. Know why? You ain't competent, that's why."

"Big word for you to use, isn't it, Zelmont?"

I shoulda popped him upside the head with the equipment bag I was holding. But that's what the little punk wanted. He was gonna keep needlin' me until he had an excuse to haul me in. "What you got, cop?"

Fahrar shoved his hat down on his head. He pulled in his lips, then said, "I got a murdered girl slaughtered by a thrill killer. A young woman who only wanted what all of us want, Raines, a chance, one goddamn chance, for a piece of that silver hope. You've had hope to spare and shat on it each time."

I threw down my bag. "That it, Fahrar? You the Spectre, that white ghost with the green gloves in the comic books? You been sent to deal justice, officer? Or is it something more, Fahrar? You get a look under Davida's dress when she was on the slab and can't get it out of your fantasies?''

He rushed me, pushing me back against a post of the carport. "Stop it, stop talking like that."

"Or what, cop?" I backhanded his hat off. "What you gonna do?" I looked down at him, his hands latched onto the front of my clothes. "Go on, get bad, chump." We were both pumped, our chests rising and falling. "You want to be the superhero, don't you?''

Fahrar pushed off me, jabbing his finger at my face. "You had everything handed to you and you don't give two fucks. Don't you understand what an opportunity you were allowed and what you could have done with it?"

"I earned every goddamn thing I ever got out of pro ball, Fahrar."

"Yeah, the jail and rehab time too."

"I started, man, I been in the lights and seen the smiles when Zelmont Raines brings the ball down out of the air like Houdini, baby I ain't no role model, but I never pretended to be one either. See I'm honest, I don't come on Barbara Walters goin' aw shucks, I didn't know about them fucked-up conditions in that Asian shoe factory. Damn, I guess I'll have to get the shoe company to do something about it. Meanwhile, I keep pocketing the endorsement dough, cryin' to hide my greed.

"I know them shoes I used to pimp to kids in Compton and wherever is made by poor little bastards in Chinese labor camps or Indonesia some place. So what? They makin' a wage, ain't they? It ain't like they got a good system like us where a man can make what he can with what he got. I think about them like they think about me, not too often. You got to go for what you know in this world, son. 'Cause it don't last long."

I turned to go.

"Don't you walk away." Fahrar grabbed my arm.

I stopped, counting down to myself like I do to keep a clear head. A right head. "Better ease up, fool. I'm startin' to lose my good graces."

He got around in front again. "You ain't walking on water around here, Zelmont."

"That's what kills you, ain't it, Fahrar? You can't figure out why I got it and you don't. You with all your heart seepin' out of your pores, and me, just waltzin' in and snatchin' balls and fame out of the air." My eyes got wide as I shoved him back against my Explorer.

I was spitting out my words quickly I was so excited. "Get used to it, Fahrar. I've been playin' football longer than you been a cop. I see the lines on the field when I'm bustin' a nut or snoozin' in my bed. I hear the crack of the pads when I'm out in the streets and smell the locker room when I got a big steak oozing on my plate. Don't preach to me 'cause you wear a badge and think Jesus himself pinned it on you. Fuck you, Fahrar. You can't come to my house and talk down to me. You ain't my mama, and I don't let her do that either.

"Now if you want a couple of tickets to the exhibition on Saturday, I got 'em for you. You want a date with a Baronette so you can get over Davida, I'll see what I can do for you, 'cause I can see you're lonely."

He was getting red around the jaw but stared at me with his goofy eyes. "Watch me on the field, Fahrar, watch me and see if I ain't got the touch of the wind. Then sit back in your broke-down easy chair sippin' your beer, and ask yourself, if I was guilty, why am I so good?"

I picked up my bag and went toward the front door. I looked at Candy and Dandy keeping silent guard, then went inside.

I caught five passes shooting between their zone D, fumbled once, and racked up ninety-two yards in the game against Cleveland. Listening to the crowd in the Coliseum, their voices bouncing off the dome's ceiling was stronger than any jolt of crack or coke I ever had. The place was maybe half full, but what did it matter? They were paying to see the Barons, and I was one of the team. Even Cannon gave me a smile when I came off the field.

We clapped each other on the backs and swatted towels at brown and white butts. There was slapping and yelling and dancing in the aisles. We'd lost by two points, but that was only after Cannon, Blake, and Pat Warren, the defensive coach, had put the pine riders in to see how they'd do.

"How's it feel to be back in the regular leagues, Zelmont?" Lenisse Havers had her cameraman cram his lens near my face.

"Like it was meant to be."

"How's the leg? In the third after the hit by Tractor Bradshaw you were limping."

"So would you, Lenisse, if a flying slab of 350 pounds came slammin' into you." I didn't limp long, anyway. Bradshaw's tackle had traumatized my thigh, and I had to be taken out and have it massaged as it spasmed. But it calmed down and I ran two plays in the fourth until they brought in the scrubs.

Walking out of the locker room, Grainger caught up to me.

"I heard they're making choices this coming week."

"There's four more games in exhibition, man, calm down. You gonna do all right." Every day he needed me to hold his hand. Rookie.