"I can see you didn't, baby." The way she said that word got me twitchy in the right places.

"So why in the fuck did you tell us that?" Danny spit out some food.

"Please," his brother said, holding up his cloth napkin.

Danny swatted it away, but the two smiled at each other.

Wilma didn't hide what she was thinking about Danny this time. It was there for all to see. "Because as I learned long ago in law school, we need to know our target before we move. And therefore we need to do our research."

Danny slumped in his seat like the little nitwit he was. "Yeah, whatever."

"Anyway, we have another in on Stadanko." Wilma toasted Nap with her wine glass.

"Huh?" Danny said.

"Pablo's sweet on your brother," I said. "And Pablo is scamming Ysanya."

Nap smiled for the first time. "There you go, brah. And on the QT, that's where your participation in the preparation of this scheme comes in." He wiggled his eyebrows at me like I'd seen Groucho do on AMC. It made me jumpy.

"Look here, Nap, if you think I'm gonna make the fag dreams of your swishy boyfriend come true with a threesome, think again, pardner. A'right?" Another jet took off and Wilma's wine glass shook.

"Don't worry, it won't be an unnatural act for you." Nap ate more of his grub.

I drank whisky but didn't taste anything. Wilma was giggling and Danny was practically falling out of his chair.

"Zelmont, we gonna rig up a video and sell that shit to all the bungholers from West Hollywood to London. Shit." He laughed so loud, other people in the restaurant turned to look at us.

"You motherfuckahs better be kiddin' or we're gonna need a new goddamn plan, and now."

"Zee," Nap clapped me on the shoulder, "don't even think twice about it. You ain't gonna be doin' no plumbin', at least not on a man." He squeezed my shoulder like that was supposed to make me feel okay. It didn't.

Later, sitting in Wilma's pad in Westchester, I had that and another matter knocking around inside my head.

"Why you in this, girl?" We were in the living room of her pad. The windows gave a view of the Loyola college campus.

"Who's a girl?" She had on her glasses and was reading one of her legal magazines, California Lawyer or something. I was playing John Madden's NFL Extreme on the PlayStation I'd hooked up to her TV. I'd picked the Packers against the Barons. The Pack was losing.

"My bad," I said. "But you're still duckin' the question. Why you down for rippin' off Stadanko? You got a gravy contract representing the team and other high-priced corporate clients. Why risk all that on this thieves enterprise."

She took her head out of the magazine. "You can be quite poetic when you want to be."

"You can learn a lot in locker rooms."

"Apparently." She tossed the magazine on a small table next to the chair where she sat. "I intend for this to be a smooth operation." She put her hands together and raised her index fingers. She touched her lips to the fingers. "I'm in this because, sooner or later, some of the bad shit chasing Stadanko is going to catch him, and the Barons franchise will come down around him. There goes my fat contract. I'm a woman who demands, Zelmont." She got up, gliding over to where I sat. "What's wrong with wanting more than a paycheck?"

She stood over me and took the controller out of my hand, letting it slip to the floor. "You feel threatened by a ruthless woman, Zelmont?"

I would have thought so. But she turned me on every time she called my name. That couldn't be good.

She had her shoe in my crotch, digging in softly with the heel. Wilma took my hand and tugged me off the chair. We walked to her bedroom door, our arms around each other. She had her hand on the knob as she turned her head and kissed me. Then she leaned against the door, thrusting her butt out at me. I stood close behind, grinding her through the pants she wore, my hand rubbing between her legs.

Eventually we made it to the sack.

In the morning when I got up, Wilma was already in the shower. I was surprised to see the walls of her bedroom were empty except for one painting. It was the kind I hate, all squiggly lines and shit. Why anyone would spend good bread for something like that was beyond me. I guess it was expected if you ran in certain circles.

"I think it would be a good idea if you and Nap started showing yourself at the club." Wilma was naked, drying her hair. I watched her breasts jiggle. She threw the towel at me. "Pay attention, you horny roughneck."

"Sure, coach. I'll sit here and imagine Cannon naked so I can keep myself focused."

Now she was making a thing of bending down and looking in her dresser. She slowly slipped on her panties, playing with me. I faked like I was interested in the morning newspaper. I never read the paper except maybe sports, and the business section back when I had money I gave that up and enjoyed watching her get dressed. She sat on the bed and had me help hook her bra. Like she really needed me to do that.

She snuggled into pantyhose, and from her long closet she got out a matching skirt and jacket.

"What you got planned today?" I asked. She was zipping up the side of her skirt.

"We have a meeting with Stadanko and the principal owners. We have to start going over the players' salaries and perks."

A stab of jealousy tightened my gut. "Grainger in the mix?"

I think so." She was brushing her hair, looking into a mirror over a make-up table.

"He's too nice," I said. "All the time askin' how you doin', how you feelin'. Boy got to get in the right mindset if he wants to get somewhere in this league." I knew I sounded like Terri, my son's mother, and I didn't care.

"They can't all be hard like you, Zelmont." Wilma patted my cheek. "I'll see you later." She told me how to set her alarm, gave me a peck and left.

I sat there for a while, then finally got my ass out of bed. I went home and got into my sweats. No sense letting myself slip when, if nothing else, I knew I'd have to depend on my body for the job.

As I pushed against the creaking in my fibula, it occurred to me I might even call Terri and see about the baby. Now why all of a sudden was I starting to worry about that knothead kid?

Chapter 10

"Don't need you, Zelmont." Danny sipped on a tall glass with a dolphin stirrer in it. Several of his boys marched around, looking for something to do as the afternoon came on.

"You don't own this place, Danny. You just the caretaker until your brother comes back."

"Then maybe you should talk to Nap." He tilted his head like he was hoping I'd start something. "But he left me in charge, and really, you ain't necessary to this operation."

"This ain't no army base, this is a nightclub."

"One you ain't needed at 'less you standing in line and payin' at the front door." He stood there, daring me to pop his full-of-himself ass. If I did, one of his clique was gonna bust a few caps in my dome, crying while he did it.

I split. Now I was back in the unemployment line until the job went down. Which meant my stupid grandstanding play of sending money to Terri was just that, stupid. Then wouldn't you fuckin' know I got the call when I rolled home.

"Zelmont, no more delays," said my attorney Barry Kleinhardt. A few hours later I was sitting near the links at the Wilshire Country Club.

"Ah hell, Barry, ain't I been on the fair and goddamn square? Didn't I make an offer to her parents to further the little ho's education?"

Kleinhardt rubbed at what was left of his disappearing hair. He threw his pen on the glass table and scooted his chair back on the patio, then put the bottom of his golf shoe against the table's metal edge. "She's in a wheelchair, Zelmont. It doesn't matter that you say she came on to you, or that she was sixteen at the time and she showed you fake ID stating she was twenty."