The Cut Page 11

  The little silver bell above the door rang out, as it had done every minute or so. Sturtz looked over but didn’t see his man come in. Couple of guys in jeans and plaid shirts, most likely a pair of truckers stopping in for a meal. Sitting at the counter sipping his black coffee—as opposed to a vodka martini, shaken not stirred—Sturtz realized this was a busy place. And, the businessman part of him noticed, it appeared to be fairly well run, too. The person in charge, as far as he could gather, was the crusty old bastard doing the cooking. Like something out of a ’70s TV show, he had the paper hat, the crewneck T-shirt, the filthy apron, and the big beefy arms (no military-service tattoo or dangling cigarette, though). When he spoke, the waitresses jumped. They looked panicked, frantic. Sturtz had a feeling they were the last—and therefore the best—in what was probably a long line of employee “tryouts.” The part of him that understood people and had tremendous intuition for what made them tick grasped the dynamics of the situation almost immediately. In here, customers got what they wanted, period. If they didn’t, someone paid dearly. And yet, as busy as they were, everything was spotlessly clean and in its place, the food was delivered in a timely fashion (and smelled pretty damn good), and every customer-employee interaction came with a smile. The only other steady sound Sturtz noticed apart from the bell over the door was the glorious melody of the electronic cash register.

  Fifteen more minutes passed, a dozen or so people came and went, and he was still alone. He checked his watch again and wondered, with a touch of fear, if he was in the wrong place. He took the little slip of paper from the outside pocket of his blazer—it was a wrinkled dry-cleaning receipt, actually—and reviewed the notes he had jotted feverishly while trapping his cell phone between his ear and shoulder two days earlier. Twelve thirty, Ellie’s, and then the address. Yes, this was right.

  A kid of perhaps eighteen or nineteen came up and sat next to him. Jeans, T-shirt, black lambskin jacket. Brown hair combed in a single, dramatic sweep to one side. He looked like he’d graduated college within the last week and was now thinking about going to the West Coast to try his hand at acting.

  “I’m sorry, but can you sit somewhere else?” Sturtz said as politely but firmly as possible. “I’m supposed to meet someone here.”

  “I know you are,” the kid said, rubbing his hands together and staring straight ahead. His smile was faint, almost smart-alecky, but there was something in his voice and in his face that suggested intelligence. This wasn’t just some arrogant teenager.

  “You’re … the guy?”

  “No, I represent the guy. My name’s Mike.” He put his hand out and smiled, still looking away. “Nice to meet you, Barry.”

  Sturtz was stunned.

  “You, too,” he said, giving the hand a quick shake.

  One of the waitresses came over and removed the pencil from behind her ear. “Hiya, cutie,” she said to Mike.

  “Hey. Can I have a Diet Coke, please?”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, for now.”

  “Okay.”

  The waitress walked off, and Mike watched her go. Although she was an attractive woman, Sturtz’s new friend didn’t seem to be appraising her in the way that most men his age would. It was almost a passive, clinical study, as if he were taking mental notes for an anthropology class currently covering the blue-collar segment of society.

  “So, we understand your client is interested in perhaps moving on,” he said quietly.

  Sturtz already knew the team that was interested in T. J. He hadn’t contacted them, as that was explicitly against league rules. Technically, they weren’t permitted to contact him, either. But.…

  One didn’t need to have a professional cardplayer’s instincts to sense how uncomfortable—and potentially explosive—this situation really was. Sturtz realized this kid wasn’t making eye contact specifically because he didn’t want anyone to know they were interacting. So, in keeping with the spirit of the moment, he also turned away, setting his elbows on the counter and focusing on the big menu board that hung just under the ceiling in a forward tilt.

  “Yes, that’s true. And I understand you might be interested in providing a place that he can move to.”

  “Correct.”

  “So you’ve heard about the grievance, then?”

  “We have a copy of it,” Mike said simply. Sturtz had no idea how in hell he obtained such a copy, but something told him the guy wasn’t lying. By this point he was in serious doubt as to whether his name was really Mike. What was even more intriguing, however, was that he didn’t look the least bit familiar. Sturtz had been involved in professional sports for almost fifteen years, most of it with the NFL. He knew everyone on every team—players, coaches, executives, lower echelon. He even knew the guys who worked at every stadium, most of them on a first-name basis. He’d never seen this individual in his life. He trusted his memory for faces, even more than his memory for names, and he had no mental file on this Mike or anyone who faintly resembled him.

  Regardless, he plowed ahead. “Okay, then you should also know that, should we get his team to agree to a trade, it won’t be cheap.”

  “We’ve anticipated that.”

  “No, I mean he won’t be cheap to obtain in the first place. My client and I have already been assured that, should the team decide to trade him, they’re going to want a bundle.”

  “Because they don’t really want to trade him.”

  “Right.”

  “Of course. We know.”

  “And you’re still willing to explore it?”

  “Definitely.”

  Going over it in his mind, Sturtz realized this freewheeling attitude wasn’t really all that hard to believe. The team Mike was representing had acquired, just last year, a quarterback with the third pick of the draft. He was a stellar choice, with amazing stats and, most agreed, a limitless future. Thinking about it reminded Sturtz, with some lingering bitterness, that he’d been about one nanometer away from signing the kid as a client, but one of his biggest competitors snatched him up at the last minute. Sturtz still had no idea what the rival agent offered that sealed the deal, but he was certain, knowing the agent as he did, it wasn’t something that would’ve held up in an ethics review.

  “And even if we get to that point, my client does not come cheap. That’s why we’re in this situation to begin with.”

  “Fully understood,” Mike said without flinching. In fact, he seemed the tiniest bit irritated by what was apparently information he already knew and had thoroughly discussed with his superiors. The quarterback in question had been surrounded by great receivers in college, including a superb tight end, who went to Denver early in the second round of the same draft. It came as no surprise to Sturtz that they wanted to make sure the kid continued to have that safety net. So they were building an entirely new offense around him, and they wanted T. J. Brookman to be a part of it.

  Perfect.

  “So what happens next?” Sturtz asked. “What do we do now?”

  “We wait and see what happens with your grievance.”

  “Ultimately, does it matter?” Sturtz said.

  “It might, it might not,” Mike replied. “If the league grants your wish, you’ll be in a very good position indeed.”

  “Well, it’s easier to get a date when you have more than one interested party.”

  Mike took a long sip of his Diet Coke before saying, “To be sure.” Then he turned and faced Sturtz directly for the first time, put on a devastating smile, and added, “Which is why we wanted to get in touch first. We’ll pay your guy what he wants. We know how much you’re thinking, and we know he’s worth it. And we’ve got the money to spend, too.”

  This much Sturtz knew. After four abysmal years, the team in question was going through a vigorous rebuilding phase, and one bright spot in the gloom was that all of their high-priced players had gone out to pasture and their back-loaded contracts had been covered. Put simply, the financial wounds had finally heale
d.

  “Sounds great,” Sturtz said. “Then I assume you’ll follow proceedings and be in touch?”

  One more long sip and the soda was gone. Mike pulled two ragged bills from the pocket of his black leather jacket and tossed them on the counter.

  “I will indeed,” he said casually, as if this were nothing more than the end of a lame date. “Gotta run, but thanks for your time. We appreciate it.”

  “Sure,” Sturtz replied, and he watched one of the most unusual characters he’d ever met walk out the door and disappear into the sunny afternoon.

  They would never see each other again.

  13

  The door to Deluxe Suite Number Six in London’s Royal Garden Hotel flew open, and Dorland Kenner, forty-two-year-old owner of the New York Giants, zoomed through like an overwound toy. He pulled off his jacket and tie and tossed them on the loveseat, then nimbly undid the buttons of his white dress shirt and tossed that, too. He was a handsome individual, with neatly groomed dark hair and a sharp-featured, Ivy League face. He glanced at his wristwatch, a Cartier his wife had given him this past Christmas, and shook his head.

  He passed through the sitting room and went into the bedroom—then came to an abrupt halt. The fresh shirt and tie should’ve been hanging on the closet doorknob, adorned in lightweight dry-cleaner’s plastic. But they weren’t. Standing there in the dying afternoon sunlight in his dress pants and crewneck undershirt, he looked around briefly to see if perhaps they’d been hung somewhere else.

  “Hell,” he said softly. He skirted the queen-sized bed and got to the phone, tapping the speed-dial button for the laundry service.

  “Hi, yes, this is Dorland Kenner in Suite Six. There was supposed to be a shirt and tie waiting for me, but I don’t see them anywhere. What’s that? Oh, okay. No, that’s fine. Just please bring them up right away. I have a dinner appointment, and I have to leave shortly. Sure, thank you.”

  He set the phone back into its cradle and, as a reflex, checked his watch again. It was roughly one minute later.

  The dinner was with the heads of an investment firm, one of several that the Kenner family dealt with in Europe. This one handled mostly real estate. It was a pretty boring group, all things considered, but they got results. Dorland’s father had done business with them since the late ’70s, and once William Kenner liked you, he kept you around forever.

  The family’s landholdings were just one facet of the Kenner empire that had been placed on Dorland’s shoulders after his father’s death from colon cancer five years earlier. Each of the Kenner siblings—Jared, Michael, and Denise were the other three—got a piece of the pie to manage as he or she saw fit. Jared, a Stanford law school graduate, had his own practice and therefore handled all legal matters. Michael ran the textile industry that made his father wealthy in the first place. Denise took care of the three philanthropic organizations. Dorland, the youngest, inherited all investments, several smaller profitable companies, and a football team known as the New York Giants. Dorland suspected his father handed him this responsibility because he’d been the most athletic of the children, a star in college in both football and baseball. But he wasn’t good enough to go pro, and he knew it. Besides, his heart was in business, and he breezed through Duke with sterling grades on his way to an MBA that he planned to put to good use.

  He had no clue how to run a football club, however, and the first few years were unsteady. His heart was in the right place, though, and he tried to learn the ropes. It was a slow process, as the other sectors of his late father’s universe absorbed most of his time. Plus, he was determined to be a dedicated husband and father. So he made the decision to leave the team under the command of Alan Gray (football side) and Chet Palmer (business side) early on. It was only in the past year that he had begun making quantifiable progress as the club’s president and CEO, with the goal of having a firm grip on its daily operations by the end of the fifth year and thus being able to independently make sound decisions concerning its future.

  While speaking with his wife, Annie, he heard a voice in the other room.

  “Hello?”

  He went out there and found a smallish woman of Asian decent in a maid’s uniform, his shirt and tie hanging from her finger.

  She smiled. “Here are your things,” she said sheepishly, as if it were her fault they hadn’t been ready. The mixture of Eastern and Western accents created a peculiar hybrid.

  Kenner smiled back, reaching into his pocket. “Great, thank you for getting it up here in such a hurry. I’m sorry, but I have to go right back out or else I wouldn’t have called.” He handed her twenty pounds.

  The woman looked at it as if he’d just placed a snake in her hand.

  “No, no, only seven,” she said.

  “You keep the rest,” he told her. “I appreciate you getting it to me so quickly.”

  “Oh, okay. Thank you.” She performed a spare, awkward bow and retreated to the hallway, closing the door.

  Kenner returned to the bedroom, tearing off the plastic and slipping into the shirt as he moved along. He finished the call with his wife while doing the tie, then grabbed the remote and clicked on the TV. He went through the stock prices, seeing nothing of note, and switched to ESPN. His timing couldn’t have been better—or, depending on your perspective, worse.

  “… and now that this grievance has been officially filed with the league, the situation could spiral downward into a nasty spitting match, much in the spirit of a contentious divorce,” Greg Bolton was saying. He was standing in a studio somewhere, in a suit and tie, with a black backdrop covered by ESPN logos in red. “So the relationship between T. J. Brookman and the New York Giants appears to be getting worse instead of better.”

  The broadcaster back at network headquarters thanked Bolton for his fine reporting and told him to keep on the story, then moved along to a baseball update.

  Kenner was on the phone again in seconds. He switched to speaker and sat down on the bed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands folded. The first person he spoke with was Amanda Bellwich, Alan Gray’s assistant. Then, a moment later, Gray himself.

  “Dorland! How are things going over there on the other side of the pond?”

  “Busy,” Kenner replied. “Very busy.”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Gray told him.

  “No, nothing at all. Hey, listen, I’m in my hotel room, on my way back out, but I just turned on ESPN and saw this story about a grievance that T. J. Brookman filed against us. Is this true?”

  There was a pause, and then Gray said, in a grave tone, “Yeah, I’m afraid it is. It looks like he’s turned on us.”

  “Why?”

  “He wants more money. He and that asshole agent of his.”

  If there was one feature of Alan Gray’s personality that Kenner never cared for, it was his generous use of profanity. Kenner was sometimes guilty of it himself, but he believed a little went a long way. Gray used it as if he were being paid by the word. Some conversations with him were like watching lost scenes from Scarface.

  “If I’m not mistaken,” Kenner went on regardless, “T. J.’s one of the best tight ends in the league. He’s done some great things for us, hasn’t he?”

  “There’s no doubt the kid’s talented,” Gray replied, “but he signed a contract, and Chet and I expect him to honor it.”

  “But what about—”

  “He only has one year left—this coming season—on the damn deal anyway. After that, we’ll be happy to come up with a new one, something that’s better suited to his current skills and contribution. But if we give him a new contract now, they’ll all be coming in with their asshole agents. It’ll be a stampede.”

  Another pause, this time from Kenner’s side.

  “Don’t worry, he’ll be properly compensated,” Gray assured him. “But for right now, what with the vast complexities of the salary cap and everything, we really can’t screw around too much with our current setup.” Gray had in
serted the words “salary cap” on purpose, because he and Chet Palmer had determined, via previous conversations, that they had a magical effect on Dorland Kenner. He had some idea of how the cap worked, but the finer points of it were still out of reach. This was why the team had hired a cap expert full-time. In truth, Alan Gray didn’t know much more about the cap than Kenner did, but he did recognize its manipulative value. When in doubt, bring “salary cap” out, and amazing things would happen.

  “Next year will be different,” Gray went on, “but this year, we just can’t.”

  Kenner was nodding. “Okay, and what happens with this grievance? It’s not making us look too good, is it? As I’m watching this report, looking at it from a fan’s perspective, I’m thinking the Giants are the bad guys here.”

  “Only for the moment,” Gray said. “Only for the moment. I’m very confident this will fizzle into nothing.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, mainly because T. J.’s claims are unfounded. Yes, he wants more money. Don’t we all? Doesn’t everyone? And he and that little prick of an agent waited until right before training camp to pull this. Why not back in April or May, when we would’ve had time to deal with it? Why right now? Because he thinks it gives him leverage, that’s why. Frankly, I think it makes them look bad, not us.”

  Kenner nodded. This made some sense, he thought. “And in the meantime, he’s not in training camp, right?”

  “That’s right. We’re trying out three other guys, all of whom have some real talent. If worse comes to worse, we’ll have to play one of them instead.”

  “But they won’t be as effective on the field as T. J.,” Kenner noted.

  “You never know,” Gray said quickly. “We didn’t think T. J. would turn into the player he’s become, either. But I had a feeling about him.”

  Kenner sighed. “Okay. I guess the situation’s about as good as it can be, all things considered.”

  “Don’t worry,” Gray said. “This’ll work out in the end. T. J. will be here, playing and contributing.”