Hangman's Game (7 page)

Tanner was a quarterback in his playing days. A backup quarterback, actually, for his entire eleven-year career. He spent two decades as an assistant before being hired here as head man. He is conventionally handsome, and he keeps himself meticulously arranged—clear blue eyes, brown hair always in place—and he spends an hour in the gym every day, making sure that when he is seen in side profile, his chest protrudes further than his belly. No love handles allowed. His physical appearance mirrors what he likes to project as a coach: a man in total control.

Tanner is reading a printed report. His head snaps up when I knock on the door.

“I really appreciate you coming in today, Nick,” he says. “Have a seat.”

I settle into the chair across from him. He is wearing a gray Sentinels polo shirt, tight enough to show off his musculature. Tanner's office also has a long black sofa, on which he reportedly sleeps at least a couple of nights a week during the season, rather than waste time traveling home to his wife and three daughters in the suburbs. On the left side of his desk is a monitor that is wired into all the coaching rooms and allows him to look in on meetings.

But the ultimate reminder of Tanner's authority is a tackboard on the side wall of his office, blanketed with eighty index cards. Each of those cards has on it a player's name and uniform number. Over the summer he will cut the roster down to fifty-three, and twenty-seven of those cards will land in the circular metal trash can by his desk.

He slides the report he was reading into a yellow folder and focuses his blue eyes on me. “You've had a hell of a night. How are you holding up?”

“As best I can, Coach.” And my eyes fill with tears. All from a mundane expression of concern from an authority figure I don't respect. I drag my hand across my cheek, trying to look like I am rubbing my eye out of exhaustion.

“That's all you can do at a time like this,” Tanner says, not seeming to notice. He rests his toned forearms on his desk. “It's such a fucking shame about Samuel. I've never seen anyone like him. Great athlete. Great kid, too.”

Tanner spent much of the spring studying Samuel in advance of the draft—interviewing not just him but his coaches and family members, and watching film of every snap Samuel played in college. And I'm sure the digging didn't stop there. If you're going to invest $64 million in a post-adolescent, you have investigators look into what coaches refer to as “character questions”—such as whether a prospect might have ever cheated on a test, or gone on a coke binge and strangled a hooker.

“Do you have any idea why anyone would have wanted to kill Samuel?” I ask.

“No idea,” Tanner says. “Samuel had the cleanest sheet I've ever seen. Lived with his parents. He dated only one girl, a friend of his sister's. He was a nice, quiet kid, simple as that. He's the last one of you guys I would expect to get a call about in the middle of the night.”

There is a pause, as we both think of the player who is surely the first guy Tanner would expect to be woken up for.

“Do you think Jai did this?” Tanner asks. I am guessing this question is the reason he called me in here.

“I don't think so,” I say. “Do you?”

He leans back in his chair and sighs. Behind Tanner, outside the window, I see a young man I don't recognize jogging from the practice fields into the building.

“Who the hell knows with that dick-for-brains?” Tanner says, massaging his wrist. “I sure hope not, but I wouldn't put anything past that guy. If we lose him too, we're…”

And then Tanner cuts himself off. The last thing he would do is allow himself to admit in front of a player that he thinks the team is screwed.

I look at the yellow folder on the desk. It has the letters DE
S
written on it in black marker—DE as in defensive end, which is Samuel's position. Tanner is looking at scouting reports, already evaluating potential replacements, less than twelve hours after the twenty-one-year-old's body was zipped into a bag.

“Why don't you go home and rest,” Tanner says.

My eyes drift over to the tackboard with the index cards and seek the one marked
11 GALLOW
. My card is toward the bottom. Immediately underneath it is a fresh card marked
10 TOLLEY
. My newly signed camp competition.

“I'm going to go downstairs and get some work in,” I blurt out, though this had not been my plan at all. “Since I'm here, you know.” And now that I have said it, I have to do it. I like to keep my word that way.

“Good for you,” Tanner says slowly, eyebrows raised. “Good for you. Keep your mind on the business at hand. That's the message we're going to need to send to everyone. That would be a great example.”

And he picks up the folder and goes back to reading his scouting reports.

I leave Tanner's office and pause halfway down the hallway. Just thinking about how I teared up in Tanner's office, I begin to do so again. I blame it on the sleep deprivation. It's all of a piece with my cursing at Cordero. I've read that even one restless night causes a noticeable degradation in brain functions.

I collect myself in the empty hallway, dry my eyes, and then I go around the bend and peek into Huff's office, hoping to find my unit coach. He isn't there, but I see that his computer is on and his knapsack is in the corner, so he has to be around somewhere.

I head downstairs to the locker room to change into my gear. As I go, I talk myself into being okay with practicing now. I did need to kick at least a couple of more times between now and my minicamp face-off with Woodward Tolley. I suspect I won't feel like driving back here tomorrow, so I might as well go ahead and knock out a session now.

I enter our capacious locker room, with its lush gray carpet and wide wooden stalls for each player. In the middle of the carpet is the team logo of a vigilant-looking man in a colonial tricorner hat. I see Huff in the far corner, near my stall, talking to the same young man I saw running in from the practice fields.

“Hey, Gallow, how you doing, buddy?” This is Jacque Newton, the team's fullback, calling at me from his stall to the left of the locker room entrance. Jacque, along with Huff and the young man, are the only people here on what is scheduled as off-time for players. Jacque is wearing on his knee a heavy black brace—he is still healing after tearing his ACL last October. I imagine he is here for a rehab session with a team trainer.

“How is your agent?” Jacque asks.

“Out of surgery, I'm told.”

He shakes his head sympathetically. “He's going to make it, I know he is.”

“I hope you're right,” I say, though of course Jacque couldn't know anything.

“Do they have any idea who did it?” he asks. “Did you see anything?”

“It all happened very fast,” I say, shrugging. “I wasn't much help to the police, I'm afraid.” In short, I didn't rat anyone out.

“This team is cursed, man,” Jacque says, shaking his head. “After a while it's like, what's the next thing that's going to happen around here?”

I shake my head, too.

“How's your knee doing?” I ask. “You going to be ready for next week?” I steal a glance toward Huff, who I don't want to miss, but he is still in the corner, talking to that young man.

“I hope so,” Jacque says. “I've been targeting this minicamp as my comeback date.” As well he should have. The Sentinels drafted a fullback in the seventh round, and teams rarely keep two of at that position.

“Good luck,” I say.

“Good luck to you, too.”

Huff is now limping across the locker room to greet me. He is African American, in his late fifties, with short salt-and-pepper hair. He is a former linebacker, and his souvenirs from his playing days include an artificial hip, false front teeth, and two crooked fingers. He wears these disfigurements as proud signifiers of a kamikaze abandon, the kind he wants to instill in his players.

“You should be at home, Nick,” he says. Then he hugs me. In five years together we have never hugged. “How are you doing?”

“I've been better,” I say.

I hang my head, fighting to stay composed. Huff looks away.

“Stay strong, Gallow,” Huff says, squeezing my shoulder. “You'll get through this, I know it.”

And then Huff leaves. His abruptness is surprising, and bracing. I turn and watch him limp off.

When I reach my stall, still dazed by this brush-off, the young man to whom Huff had been talking is staring up at me. He sits on a stool a couple of stalls down, in an unmarked space traditionally used by the most transient players. He is wearing only gray underpants and one sock that he has just pulled on, and his dark hair is still damp from the shower. He looks as if he wants to speak to me.

I glance at his leg muscles, and I know right away. Huff only had a few seconds for me, but he had plenty of time for this young man who has come to take my job.

For here is Woodward Tolley. Hunter, meet hunted.

“Hello,” I say evenly. “I'm Nick Gallow.”

“Hi, I'm Woodward Tolley,” he says, standing up quickly. His brown eyes are aglow, but he strains to maintain a respectful somberness, as befitting the morning news. His lean and gangly frame carries some muscle, but he still has plenty of filling out to do; I would guess that he only began working out with professional seriousness in the past year.

But even in his immature state, Woodward has a competitive advantage over me. Woodward will play for the rookie minimum, which is about a third of my $970,000 salary. Plus, I'll be due a roster bonus of $350,000 if I am with the Sentinels for the first day of full training camp in late July. I thought the idea of the bonus sounded cool when I signed my contract, but as its date of payment approaches, I now see it as a reason for the team to get rid of me. I suspect the front-office folks see it that way, too.

“Welcome to the Sentinels, Woodward,” I say. We shake hands, firmly. Very firmly.

“Thank you, Mr. Gallow,” he says. “How are you doing? How is your agent?”

“I'm okay,” I say. “Cecil made it out of surgery. And please, call me Nick.”

“That's great, Nick,” he says, hands on his hips. “I'll be praying for the best.”

“Thank you.”

“I know it's a strange time, but I just have to say, ever since they signed me, I've been looking forward to meeting you. I am such a big fan of yours. I mean, that hit on Dez Wheeler last year, that is just about the coolest thing I've ever seen a punter do.”

If Woodward is going to attempt to curry favor with compliments, at least he is choosing his wisely. The Dez Wheeler play happened last year, against Atlanta. Wheeler is their speedy return man, and among the most feared in the league. I hit a strong punt, about fifty-one yards with decent hang time, and he fielded it, sidestepped our first man downfield and shot forward, picking up speed with each tackler he passed. He was about to hit full sprint—that is, until I charged, planted my feet, and drove my shoulder into his midsection. Wheeler went horizontal, and the ball popped skyward.

We didn't recover Wheeler's fumble, of course, and the Sentinels were already trailing by two touchdowns, on our way to yet another loss, so it wasn't much to celebrate in the moment. But on the next morning's
SportsCenter,
my hit made their countdown of the top ten plays of the day—coming in at number four. I have the countdown saved on my DVR, and on a slow Tuesday I've been known to watch it a time or ten.

“Thanks, Woodward,” I say. “And please, go ahead and finish dressing.”

Woodward dutifully reaches for his other sock and pulls it on, and then grabs a shirt.

“You know, my folks actually saw you the other day over at—what's that place called, the Jackson Suites.”

“You mean Jefferson?”

“Yeah, Jefferson, that's right.” He pulls a gray Sentinels T-shirt over his head. “The team told me about it.” Which is exactly how I found the Jefferson years ago, after I won my job. “What a neat place. My family's all staying there in one big setup. The team's giving me a room when camp's on, but I'm staying with my folks for now. My dad, my mom, two uncles, an aunt, and a couple of my cousins are all there. The Jefferson only rents by the week, so they came early and made a vacation out of it.”

“Do they know the minicamp isn't open to the public?” I ask.

“Oh, they know.” Woodward smiles, pulling on a pair of tight-fitting jeans. “But when the Sentinels signed me, they were all so excited. They just had to come. I guess they figure that these three days might be my whole professional career.”

He's right, the camp's three days might be his whole career. They could also be the end of mine.

*   *   *

Woodward is on his way home. I have the entire outdoor practice area to myself, and my choice of the three fields behind the facility. I go to my regular spot, Field Three, which is in the back and where the kickers traditionally work.

I begin my standard practice routine, one I have repeated hundreds of times over the years, unvaryingly, in the quest to stamp perfect form into my muscle memory. I go to the jugs machine and set the timer to shoot a ball to me every forty-five seconds. Then I set up fifteen yards away and field balls and send them flying. It is only in my most active spurts—when I am catching the snap, and doing my step-step-step-kick—that the shootings leave my mind. Over the session a scenario develops in my mind. I imagine that I am in a game, getting ready to kick, and the guys on defense are distracting me by pantomiming reenactments of the shootings. I will be counting off the players in front of me to make sure we have eleven men on the field, and a guy on the defense will pretend to shoot two of his teammates; one will stagger and clutch his stomach, while the other falls lifeless and flat, and then bites down on a blood pellet. And with this distraction, the play clock runs out on me. After which the defense high-fives, and Tanner whispers about how sad it is, that I am psychologically ruined and he will have to get rid of me.