“So has everybody and his grandmother.”
“But everybody and his grandmother don’t know the game like I do. And not everybody knows you like I do. Nobody taught you and coached you like I did. Griff.” His voice had turned husky, and if Griff hadn’t known better, he would have thought he saw tears starting to form in the older man’s eyes. “You couldn’t have thrown a better, more accurate pass. You practically walked the football to the two-yard line and laid it in Whitethorn’s hands. You put it right between the numbers on his jersey.”
He straightened and turned away for a moment, and when he came back around, he said simply, “He didn’t catch it.”
Griff remained silent.
Coach said, “Whitethorn didn’t catch it, but not because you threw a bad pass. He simply dropped the damn ball.”
Griff, feeling the pressure of his own emotions, nodded. “He dropped the damn ball.”
Breath streamed out of Coach’s mouth, sounding like a plug had been pulled on an inflatable toy. It even seemed to Griff that he deflated. “So why in God’s name did you lie about throwing that game? Why did you admit to a crime you didn’t commit?”
“Because I was guilty. I was guilty as hell. I had every intention of screwing up and losing that game for my own profit. For two million dollars, I was gonna see to it that we lost. But…”
He broke off, unable to continue for several moments. When he did, his voice was gravelly. “But when it came right down to it, I couldn’t do it. I wanted to win that game. I had to.” His hand formed a fist as though trying to grasp the unattainable. “The only hope I had of saving myself was to win that game.”
He lay back and closed his eyes, placing himself there on the field. He heard the roar of the crowd, smelled the sweaty jerseys of his teammates as they huddled, felt the tension compressed into a stadium of seventy thousand screaming spectators.
“We’re down by four. A field goal won’t do. The clock is running out. No time-outs remaining. It’s the worst-case scenario, and if that isn’t enough, the Super Bowl is riding on this game. We’ve got time for one more play.
“To cash in from Vista, all I really had to do was let the clock run out, and Washington would have had it. But, coming out of that last huddle, I thought, Fuck those Vista bastards. Fuck their dollars. They may break both my legs, but I’m going to win this championship.
“It all came down to that one play, Coach. One pass. One choice that would make me better than the sludge I’d come from. What I did on that play would define my character. My life, actually.”
After a moment, he opened his eyes and laughed at the irony. “Then Whitethorn dropped the pass. He dropped it!” He scrubbed his face with his hand as though to rub out the memory of seeing his receiver lying on his back in the end zone, his hands empty as the game clock ticked down to double zeros.
“But it really didn’t matter. I had sold my soul to the devil anyway. After the loss, I figured I might just as well get paid for it. So when Bandy showed up with my cash, I took it.
“Sometimes I think that maybe the shrink at Big Spring was right, that maybe I wanted to get caught. Anyway, after I was busted, people assumed I’d thrown a pass that was impossible to catch. Whitethorn let them think it. And I let them think it. I was guilty of everything else. I had lied, gambled, cheated, broken the law, pissed on the rules and ethics of professional sports.” He smiled wryly. “But I didn’t throw that game.”
Coach dragged his fists across his damp eyes. “I’ve waited a long time to hear you say it.”
“It feels good to say it. Because the worst part of it, the very worst thing of the whole experience, prison, everything, was knowing how badly I had shamed you and Ellie.”
Coach cleared his throat and said gruffly, “We lived through it.”
He said it in an offhand manner, as though this moment didn’t have any significance. It did, though, and it was huge. Griff hadn’t begged his forgiveness, and Coach hadn’t granted it. Not in so many words. But that was the understanding that passed between them without it getting sloppy and sentimental. He was in Coach’s favor once again. He had his pardon. Maybe even—dare he think it?—his love.
“It would mean a lot to Ellie if you came around more often, let her cook you a meal, fuss over you some, sneak you money she thinks I don’t know about.”
Griff smiled. “I will. I promise. If I’m not in jail.”
Coach frowned. “Over what you did to get Laura away from Rodarte?”
“She told you about that?”
“Yeah, and it’s all over the news today. But I don’t think the assault charges will stick. Not when it comes out what a threat Rodarte posed, and she’ll make sure everyone knows.”
Mention of her name brought Laura into the room with them, an intangible but conspicuous presence. Griff looked hard at Coach, who read the unasked questions in his eyes. “She can’t come to see you, Griff.” He spoke in as soft a voice as he could manage. “Press would be on it like flies on dogshit. There’s already been speculation. Raised eyebrows. You know what I’m talking about. Nothing specific, just the suggestion that something between the three of y’all was a little shady.
“Don’t forget, it’s only been days since she held a very public funeral for her husband. Joe Q. Public doesn’t know that Speakman had gone off his rocker, and, for the future of the airline, she’d like to keep it that way. She certainly doesn’t want anybody to know what you were hired to do for them.”
“She told you about that, too?”
“All of it.” Coach shook his head in bewilderment. “Hell of a thing. Never heard of such.”
“It’s in the Bible.”