not miss a beat. "Who says we're
hiding it and why should we? Fella has a right to a decent
laying-out. Simply had him removed to a decent place."
"You removed also every official trace of
the event."
"The vulgar press loves this kind of shit.
We just do what has to be done to avoid notoriety."
"JQ would have done it that way."
"Bet your ass. And, speaking of your ass, my
friend, you really had no right to push the coroner that way,
desecrate the body, all that shit. Man died a natural death. Leave
him alone in peace. Why don't you become a tennis pro?"
He was showing me that he
could turn it quickly too. I was really beginning to enjoy this.
"Think I'm good enough?"
"Beat the shit out of Centrales at Carmel.
Yeah, I'd call that good enough."
The guy really had my number. And I could
tell that he was enjoying calling it too.
I wagged the cigarette at him, then snuffed
it out as I told him, "This is one reason why not. You're right. I
like my independence, even to the point of choosing my own poisons.
Professional athletics are too rigorous."
"You don't like rigor."
"We already covered that. I do not like
rigor. And that, I suppose, is why I should be leaving you right
about now." But I made no move to go.
He said, "You're a good team player, though.
Navy thought so. Bet they cried when you left them."
I said, "Karen is in severe difficulty."
He said, "I know that. What the hell do you
think we're talking about?"
I saw his hand move on the armrest, a finger
poising over the buttons of the console, then selecting one by
feel.
I thought, oh shit, it's a James Bond movie
and now I am about to plunge through this floor into a pit of
hungry crocodiles.
But nothing like that happened. And Kalinsky
went right on talking. "This really isn't my style, but I have to
tell you that I like you, Ash. I guess I really expected it to go
this way. I mean, I figured we'd get along fine even before I
finished reading your file. This little talk really just confirms
everything I expected to find. Look, we've tried everything with
this kid and now we're really beginning to feel desperate. Mind
you, I don't usually show my hand this way, but I guess you know
already the trouble we've got. So even if you weren't worth a shit
I'd rather have you on the inside than outside somewhere raising a
lot of notoriety."
The guy seemed really hung up on
"notoriety"—a holdover, I presumed, from the JQ brand of public
relations.
Knuckles rapped lightly on the paneled door
behind me and a guy glided silently in, placed a manila file folder
in Kalinsky's right hand, then glided back out without a glance at
me.
"Something here I want you to look over.
Study it carefully and make sure you understand the full
ramifications before deciding either way." He removed an
officious-looking document on legal-size paper and slid it across
the polished surface of the desk.
It was an employment contract, several pages
of it, with maybe five lines relating what I would get and the rest
laboriously detailing what they would get.
Right up front, for me, was two grand a day
plus full living and business expenses with a thirty-day minimum,
payable in advance, renewable in thirty-day chunks at the pleasure
of the employer. A check for the first sixty thousand was attached,
made out to me, awaiting only a signature to make it operative.
One little scrawl on a piece of paper and I
would be, right up front, worth almost as much as my Maserati.
I guess my eyes reacted a bit at that figure
because Kalinsky chuckled quietly and threw in a clincher.
"Of course you will be immediately issued
all the most powerful plastic to cover outside expenses, all billed
directly to the corporation. You'll never even have to know how
much you're taking us for, so the salary is free and clear."
The salary, yeah, but how free and clear
would I be with someone buying me in thirty-day chunks in
advance?
I read on.
It was a body-and-soul contract. They would
own me, twenty-four