"Grier was smoking today too," Grainger said.

He was. He was gonna take Grainger's slot, not 'cause he was that much better but because he was that much hungrier. "I'll see you on Monday, Grainger."

"Yeah," he said, like an eight-year-old who'd learned Santa wasn't real.

I split, and after chilling and changing at the pad I went to an after-party Duck Shannon, the first-string center, was throwing at the Locker Room. I was curious to see how things were working with Danny as the straw boss.

"Zelmont." Danny Deuce nodded at me as I entered. He and his Daltons crew were in sports coats and slacks. Seems Nap had insisted they follow a dress code. Of course, you can take a thug off the corner, but you can't take the corner out of the thug. These brothers all looked like they'd as soon beat you down as walk past you.

"Nap around?" I asked one of the junior gangsters.

"Who you?" he said in that voice they learned at CYA.

I sighed and went off to find him, but he wasn't around. And Danny wouldn't tell me squat. I knew Nap had moved out of his Mount Olympus pad, but didn't know where to. That made me kinda mad, like maybe he didn't trust me to keep quiet. I ordered another drink, then left without waiting for it.

Who was I foolin'? Like I could go to the Locker Room and pretend I hadn't said what I'd said to him a few weeks ago at the Seven Souls. Like we could go on being friends with Stadanko hangin' between us. For once I went to bed early, by myself, and happy to do so.

Monday I was bending into my locker taking my pads off after practice when this hand landed on my shoulder. I turned, but it wasn't Coach Cannon. "What do you want? This ain't play hour, Trace."

"Man wants to see you." He was crowding me in front of my teammates like I was a punk.

"Back the fuck up." I got in his face, breathing on his flaming cross.

"You can talk like a man in a room full of your other hedonists, but what does it matter?" He grinned, and we mad dogged each other until he pointed at the exit. "He's waiting, and now I've already told you twice."

"Maybe you slow, Trace, maybe you hearin' hymn music too much in your bean head, but I got to get somewhere, understand?"

"Understand I'm not telling you another time." He stepped back, touching the tattoo on his cheek like it was a lucky charm. "Go on, find out."

The evilness of his smile made me kinda sick. I pulled on a T-shirt and walked out in my practice pants and socks. Julian Weems was in the hallway, his hands in his pockets. Two more of his holy-rolling squares were with him. Weems was in a cream-colored suit and pearl black shoes, his skin the same shade as his off-white shirt.

"Mr. Raines, you're off the team."

He didn't even let me get close. He practically yelled it so it could be heard in the locker room. "I passed your drug tests, Moses. You ain't got no reason to bounce me."

"I know you beat the screening somehow, but that's irrelevant to me." He swatted his hand through the air. "I am exercising my prerogative and removing you from the roster before it's finalized."

I made for Weems, but the beefy boys were prepared for that action. They moved in front of him, ready to rack me in a New York minute. I could sense Trace itchin' to slap me down from behind. "You can't do that, that ain't right."

Weems stuck his hands in his pockets, and like before, the slabs moved to either side of him. "Yes, well, so be it. The indisputable fact remains we will not have your kind in the NFL."

I couldn't get any words out of my mouth.

Feeling bold, Weems stepped from around his protection. "You don't have a contract yet, you are here only at the pleasure of the owners."

"And you ain't one of them," was the only lame thing I could say.

"I'm the commissioner, Raines. And though I'm sure you never bothered to read what is the purview of my office, I can assure you I exercise a fair amount of leverage with the owners."

I wasn't sure, but it sounded like he had the goods on Stadanko and was flexing to prove it. "I haven't done anything, Weems."

"But you will. You will get in a fight at a rock concert, or have an assignation with a married woman, or hit a policeman as you did in Atlanta and Denver. You will do something to make a mockery of what we are attempting to do in this league, and I will not suffer it. I simply won't. You are gone."

A twitch jerked one side of his lip. Then he walked away, his dog pound trotting after him. Trace said, "You better find honest work, homeboy. The devil has betrayed you."

I got on the pay phone and screamed at my new agent Lowe. "Why didn't you know about this?" Players went past me into the parking lot. Cannon must have gone out another way. The coward wouldn't face me.

"Calm down, Zee. Don't you know I'll get on this like last week? They can't get away with this kind of shit. What's Stadanko's position?"

"Prone, his ass in the air and puckered up so he can get reamed easier by his lord and master King Julian." I slammed the mouthpiece against the wall, breaking it. I got my street shoes on and drove off in my football pants. I stopped at a liquor store near the airport on Century and marched inside. I got stared at but they took my money for the fifth of Cutty. I'd finished a good part of the bottle by the time I rolled home. Too bad Davida was dead, she could really ease my tension right now. Drunk and mad enough to kill, I broke the rest of the scotch against Candy's head. "Put that goddamn tongue back in your head," I told her. I stumbled inside and called Isabel at her work. She was a clothes buyer for Bloomingdale's or Macy's or whatever the hell it's called.

"Busy?"

"Workin'a couple of buyers. You sound down."

"Got fired."

Nothing for a bit. "Look, I have to close this deal, all right? How 'bout you come by tonight 'round 7?"

"Sure." I hung up and got my cognac out. I juiced up the stereo, a Paris CD jammin' on it as I sipped and plotted and sipped some more. I fell asleep and woke up a little after 5. If Lowe had called, I'd been lost in snooze land. I still had an edgy high on. I showered and had something to eat. By then I was in a half-sober way, together enough to manage the freeways at the end of rush hour to get into East Los and Isabel's pad.

I knocked and she answered the door.

"You look real professional," I said, noticing her business suit.

"You look wore out."

"I ain't that wore out."

She let me in and we made small talk about how messed up it was that Weems did what he did to me, how she had a lawyer I could talk to, and so forth. Pretty soon we let the feeling that had been building between us since the funeral take over and I had her dress up, pantyhose and panties down, and was waxing that ass doggie style on the couch.

"Zelmont," she said between sighs, her hands on the back of the sofa cushions. "You didn't kill my sister, did you?"

"Of course not." I kept on keeping on.

"Good," she said, "it wouldn't be right making love to you if you did."

"Oh yeah, that'd be sick."

Afterward, we sat slouched down on the couch, watching the 10 o'clock news, our legs over each other. She was in an old man's bathrobe and I was in my bikini drawers.

"What are you going to do?" We were watching this story about a kid who went into a burning apartment to save a three-legged cat belonging to this crippled seventy-year-old woman.

"I don't know," I said. I was scared of what was bubblin' inside my head. I didn't want to fix on it, but the idea wouldn't go away.

She snuggled her head on my chest. "I don't cook breakfast."

One of these days I was gonna catch me a domesticated chick who did. "Ain't no thang, Isabel. I didn't come here to get my eggs scrambled."

"You sure about that?" She started kissing me and we got busy again.