Hangman's Game (22 page)

“Luke Reckherd?” she says, puzzled. “Is he with the Sentinels?”

“No, no,” I say. “I saw him at the service. Was he a friend of Samuel's?”

“Not one I ever heard of,” she says. “And I was with that boy every day he was on this earth.” Her eyes fill with tears, and she adds, “At least until the last few.”

Her jaw begins to quiver and she turns away. I place my hand on her shoulder, which is startlingly bony. “Thank you,” I say. “And again, I am so sorry.” Without a further word she returns to her seat and buries her face in her hands.

I walk away, feeling stricken, and also disgusted. I sit down for a moment to collect myself and think this through.

After a while my eyes are drawn to the football flying across the road, and so I drape my jacket over a folding chair and walk across the road with the intention of speaking to the game's quarterback, Herrold McKoy. But before joining the action, and without making too much of a show of it, I stop behind a car and dig my heel forward and lean back in a hamstring stretch. My leg feels, if not perfect, at least passable. I have certainly played through worse. Tomorrow afternoon, with some luck, I will be back in Philadelphia and I can have a massage from the team trainer to get me ready for minicamp. I soon join the group of guys milling about, waiting for a pass from Herrold.

Herrold, noticing a new arrival, throws me an easy floater. The throw is a little short so I have to trot a few steps to catch it, and then I just let my momentum carry me until I am standing near Herrold.

Herrold claps his hands for me to toss him the ball back, but I turn and zing a low spiral to a lanky young man in a white shirt and black tie. He catches the ball without moving, and then sets it down for a second as he shakes the sting off his hands.

“Not bad,” Herrold says to me. He claps his hands and the ball comes back to him.

“Go out,” Herrold says to me. “Deep route.”

I glide straight and easy for seven steps and then veer to the left. Herrold throws a pass sharper and tighter than what I had seen from him before, as if he were responding to my pass, reestablishing himself as the big arm in this game. But he throws wide and low. The ball smacks the ground, kicking up dust. I collect the ball and trot back toward the group. Herrold claps his hands for the ball again.

“You go out,” I say to Herrold. “Give me a pattern.”

“What?” he says.

“C'mon, you've got some moves, right?”

Herrold shakes his head but then runs straight upfield, makes a comically exaggerated fake to the left and then breaks right. I throw the ball high, aiming it deeper than where Herrold has been running. Herrold accelerates and makes an impressive one-handed catch. The core of a natural athlete still lives under that Rabelaisian shell. He spikes the ball triumphantly, but then he bends over gasping, belly on his thighs. He looks like he might retch, just from a few seconds of sprinting.

“Goddamn,” announces Herrold, righting himself and wiping his brow. “Time for a pie break. Herrold will be back in a minute, y'all.”

Herrold slowly walks across the road and heads toward the buffet. I jog up alongside him.

“Mind if I join you?” I say. “I haven't had dessert yet.”

“Sweet potato pie, man,” says Herrold with a friendly wheeze. “Got to have it. It is outstanding!” Another wheeze. “Banana pudding ain't bad either.” Wheeze. “I think I'm going sweet potato this time.”

I briefly consider the idea that Herrold might have killed Samuel just to hit this buffet.

“Someone told me that you're Herrold McKoy,” I say. “Is that right?”

“Most definitely,” he says happily, extending a sweaty hand for a shake. “You want an autograph, I got a Sharpie in my suit jacket.”

“That's okay,” I say. “But thanks for asking.”

We hit the dessert table. I rarely eat sweet potatoes in pie form, but they are loaded with vitamins and a staple of my diet, so I take a small slice. Herrold takes sweet potato pie also, as well as a big dollop of banana pudding and a slice of frosted yellow cake.

“Should we have a seat?” I say.

“Sure.”

We walk over to an empty circle of folding chairs and sit down. The metal creaks dubiously beneath Herrold's weight.

“How did you know Samuel?” I ask.

“Just from playin',” he says.

“Were you guys on a team together?”

“Oh, nothing like that,” he say. “But down here, it's all one big community. We look out for one another. You a reporter?”

He asks that last question with too much eagerness.

“Not a reporter,” I say. “Just a friend.”

“That's cool, that's cool,” he says, making fast work of his desserts, the plastic fork disappearing into his meaty hand.

We eat in silence. It strikes me that Herrold isn't showing much curiosity about me—how I knew Samuel, how I came to throw a football so well.

“So what are you up to these days?” I say.

“Oh, a little of this, a little of that,” he says. “A couple months ago, I was in a charity bass-fishing tournament. Anything Herrold can do to help kids.”

A charity bass-fishing tournament. So that accounts for one day.

“Anything else?” I say. “Do you work?”

“Got a cousin who owns a sports bar,” he says quickly. “It's called Newsome's. He likes to have me hang out there. It draws in some folks, you know. People who want an autograph, or just want to talk football. So I do that a few nights a week.”

So his job is to eat burgers and drink beer and talk about himself. I wondered if his pay extended beyond his bar tab.

“Nice work if you can get it,” I say.

“People like to see me,” Herrold says. He gives his belly an agreeable pat. “And there sure is a lot of me to see.”

“What's up with that, if you don't mind my asking?”

“I eat a lot,” Herrold says with a laugh. “If it ain't the bar food, man, it's my mom. She's the best cook in Alabama. I come down to breakfast and there's biscuits and gravy and sausage and eggs, and then after I get my fill of that, it's like, whoa, I've got to go back to bed.”

“Were you working at Newsome's last week?” I ask.

He hesitates for a moment before mumbling, “Uh … yeah, yeah, sure.” It is the first time in our conversation he has paused before answering. And on the money question.

“Where is Newsome's, anyway?” I ask. “In case I'm ever in the neighborhood and want to drop by.”

“Down in Mobile,” he says.

“Newsome's in Mobile,” I say. Perhaps I would visit after the funeral, to verify where he was on the night of the shooting, although that feels like a lot of effort to pursue an awfully long shot.

“Gots to get back in the game,” Herrold says, standing up and slurping the last bit of pie off his plate. “You coming?”

“Maybe later,” I say. “I'm just going to sit for a moment.”

Herrold goes back to the game while I remain seated, but I am not alone for long. A husky and broad-shouldered man with a neatly trimmed beard and mustache approaches me. He looks to be around my age, and he wears a heavy gold wedding band on his left hand. “Hey, you're the Sentinels punter, aren't you,” he says with a curious smile. “Nick Gallup?”

“Gallow,” I say. “Nick Gallow.” I bet Jai is never mistakenly addressed as Jai Carseat. “But yes, I'm the Sentinels punter.”

I stand and we shake hands. He squeezes hard enough to communicate a serious workout regimen.

“I'm Marcel LeSeur,” he says. “I'm the D-line coach at Western Alabama. Samuel was one of my boys.”

“I'm sorry for your loss,” I say. “Would you like to have a seat?”

“Yes, thank you.” He sits. He too is a larger person than the chair was meant for. He leans forward, forearms resting on his thick thighs. “I saw you were talking to Herrold McKoy.”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

“Watched plenty of his film, if that counts.”

“Did Samuel know him?” I ask.

LeSeur laughs. “About as well as a truck knows a deer it runs over.”

“There were a lot of Samuel's victims here today,” I say. “I saw Luke Reckherd around, too.”

LeSeur taps my arm. “I saw him, too. What is that all about?” he says, looking mystified. “That white suit and all that nodding.”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” I say. “Did Samuel know him?”

“Not that he ever told me about,” LeSeur says. “Shame about Luke Reckherd. He could have been the best quarterback this conference has ever seen, if his knee hadn't been torn up.” LeSeur says this without any acknowledgment that it was his pupil who did the damage.

“You have any idea who could have wanted to take a shot at Samuel?”

“Besides JC?” he says, raising his eyebrows.

“Yes,” I say, with enough firmness, I hope, to discourage further intimations about Jai.

“Absolutely no idea,” he says. “No one does. That's what I came over to ask about, to be honest with you. You were actually there.”

I picture the shooter's car driving away, my eyes on that stupid quarter moon instead of the license plate.
You fucked up, punter
.

“I wish I knew what happened,” I say. “I have no idea.”

LeSeur nods, and then we sit in silence, avoiding each other's eyes.

“Your coach still around?” he asks.

“Tanner? He's long gone.”

His mouth sags. “Dang. I wish I could have talked to him today,” he says. “He and I got to know each other a little bit when he was doing background work on Samuel. He told me maybe he'd help me with a job after the draft. But after he picked Samuel I called him a couple times and I never heard back.”

“Coach Tanner is a man who loves his schedules,” I say. “I doubt his leaving today had anything to do with you.”

“Oh, I'm sure he wasn't avoiding
me,
” LeSeur says, with an odd emphasis on the last word.

“Who was he avoiding then?”

LeSeur looks around to see if anyone is within earshot. Then he pulls his chair close and says in a low voice, “Before the draft, Coach Tanner came down here to Vickers twice to meet with Samuel, okay? Does two trips sound like standard procedure to you?”

It doesn't. One visit to a hometown, or even none, would be the norm. Teams have plenty of other opportunities to talk to prospects—combines, pro days, or visits to their facilities.

“Tanner's career was riding on this pick, so I can imagine him wanting to double-check everything.” I say this as if I believe it, though I can hear myself rationalizing. “You can't underestimate how anal Tanner is,” I add.

“Who are you telling? Tanner's first trip down here, he and I watched game film of Samuel for six hours,” he say. “Six goddamn hours. Every play, he asked me what Samuel's assignment was, and checked it against what Samuel actually did. And he took notes on each play we watched.”

“Yeah. He's a fun guy.”

“He takes care of business, to be sure. At least, he did that first time around. But then he comes for a second trip, and all he does is stop by the office for five minutes,” LeSeur says. “He asks for some statistical reports that I could have e-mailed him. Then he says, I gotta go. He wouldn't tell me where. He didn't talk to any of the other coaches, or anyone else at Western Alabama. You tell me why he made that second trip.”

I sift through possible explanations, but come up wanting. I wonder if Tanner might have been researching something about Samuel's personal life, but that doesn't make sense. Teams have investigators to do that sort of digging.

After I have been silent for a while, LeSeur says, with an insinuating lift of the eyebrows, “Remember. He's a man.”

“Tanner has a woman down here?” I ask.

LeSeur nods. “That's what I hear.”

“Was she at the funeral?” I ask. That would explain Tanner's hurry to leave, possibly even his grumpy mood at the airport.

“She was here, absolutely.” LeSeur leans his head in close and whispers, “No girl is going to miss her brother's funeral.”

 

CHAPTER 16

A
FTER
M
ARCEL
L
E
S
EUR
moves on to mingle with the other mourners, I sit on that folding chair for a good long time by myself.

I try not to stare at Selia Sault, who is now talking to some friends. She is the tallest among them by a good six inches, and she looks dour as they chat with her, her bloodshot eyes occasionally drifting off into the distance. I now wonder if all her sadness is the result of her brother's death, or if seeing Tanner come and go wasn't a second stab to the heart.

Selia is beautiful—and I can see how she could be spectacular if she were carrying herself with confidence—but her looks are beside the point. She could be the Sistine Chapel and it would not begin to justify Tanner's choice. He is married, he is fifty-one years old, he is the highly paid leader of our team. Selia is a college sophomore, and the sister of his top draft pick. And this is a man who barks at players if their uniform shirts are untucked. I can't ascribe any relations between them to love or even lust. It is self-destruction, pure and simple. It is as if Tanner looked at Selia and said to himself, hey, here's an opportunity to undermine my career, my family, my authority, and my reputation with one ejaculation.

I stand up and talk to a couple of more folks, and I pick up some nuggets about Selia. She is attending her brother's school, Western Alabama, on a basketball scholarship, and she is majoring in education. Simple questions about what kind of girl she is return comments like “sweet” and “nice.” I ask if she had been planning on moving to Philadelphia along with her parents. A college teammate of Samuel's says he heard something about Selia transferring, but he wasn't sure if it was actually happening.