QB1 (15 page)

“I want to manage the clock,” said the
coach.

Reilly responded, “I don’t want a field goal.
It may not be there closer in. The defense will hold them. They
have all day.”

The coach waited till the last second. “Okay,
don’t force it. Give it a shot.

On play action, the fake froze the secondary
and matched a streaking Oliva one on one with the smaller
cornerback. Oliva took a perfect pass over his outside shoulder.
The defender managed to wrestled him out at the 4. Two plays later
Reggie Robinson powered in with 1:20 to go. The defense intercepted
an Atlanta desperation pass on 4th down and it was over. The crowd
had seen a ball game.

Inside the locker room, a laughing Tony
Reilly yelled over at Keiland Best, “I’m glad you decided to show
up for the second half, rookie.”

The quiet, polite, deeply religious Best said
smiling, “you hurt my feelings.”

Reilly walked over to him, “awwww,” then
jumped on top of him followed by the rest of the team.

When asked about a report about an emotional
halftime outburst in the locker room during the post game press
conference, Reilly admitted, “I was a little hot that we weren’t
playing very well.”

“I heard a water cooler was destroyed.”

“That damn water cooler. I asked them to move
it half a dozen times. Too close to my locker. Always a lot of
riff-raff hanging around there. Seemed like as good time as any to
do something about it.” The crowded press room laughed.

“Do you think the Team came out flat
today?”

“That’s excellent insight, Bob,” Reilly said
sarcastically. “When you’re playing like we have lately, other
teams are going to be up for you. We need to be prepared to handle
every team at their best. I hope we don’t make that mistake
again.”

They didn’t.

Chapter 30

On a cold wet November Sunday, San Francisco
showed up to play a struggling Chicago team. Chicago had a rookie
quarterback playing for their injured starter and a defense,
uncharacteristically for the them, wasn’t stopping anyone. San
Francisco established their running game and Chicago couldn’t stop
it all day. Best had a hundred and forty yards and two touchdowns.
Reggie Robinson had 63 yards and a touchdown. It wasn’t till two
minutes to go that Chicago finally scored for a 28-7 San Francisco
victory. It had been old time smash-mouth football all afternoon
and it showed the offense was not just about finesse and passing.
You had to respect the run from them.

The next week at home against Seattle, San
Francisco again established a running game and forced the defensive
changes that then opened the passing game for big plays. This was
every team’s dream. Your running game is so good, it forces other
teams to play run defense against it. As soon as Reilly saw the
defense cheating against the run, he would change the play at the
line and throw it to a receiver who was in single coverage. He
would force the defense to show their hand by playing hurry up with
no huddle. Seattle, like Chicago the week before, just didn’t have
an answer. Neither did St. Louis the following week when San
Francisco won their 8th in a row, in another easy win.

The Team was playing the best football in the
league on both sides of the ball. The cover of Sports Illustrated
for the week featured Tony Reilly.

Chapter 31

Mullins spent two hours returning phone calls
and another hour on emails and then went to bed for a three hour
nap. When he woke at 11 PM, Liz and Roger were playing backgammon
in the living room. “I beat him two games, Tom.” Liz was drinking a
glass of wine. Mullins grabbed a glass, opened the freezer, pulled
a bottle of Stolie out, and poured himself two fingers.

“Roger, go home and go to bed. And take that
fucking game with you.”

“Awwww,” said Liz. Roger packed up.

“What’s going on with the Muslims?” he asked
Roger.

“Their lawyer says they didn’t do it,” Roger
said, while gathering up his stuff.

“What does the news say?”

“Nothing, but their booking photos were
released. The story is that they’re radicals and that they had been
planning it for months according to unnamed sources.”

Liz took a sip of white wine. Mullins sat
down next to her and stared at Roger. “Okay,” Mullins said. “And
how did they know Tony was going to be at his house that night?
Were they sitting outside his house for the last month?”

“I don’t know,” Roger said. Mullins sat there
looking at Roger who sat down on the chair opposite him. Mullins
opened his cell phone and made a call.

“Hey, Eddie.”

“Hey, Tommy.”

“What’s going on?”

“Well the FBI has the four guys somewhere and
they’re probably sweating them.”

“That’s it?”

“Yea, the guys have no record. They were all
part of the same mosque. They’re Intel Engineers and they live in
Union City. That’s all we got. Just what I read on the Net.”

“Engineers? Not exactly Al Qaeda
profiles.”

“Tell me about it. I wouldn’t put it past the
FBI to just be on a fishing expedition.”

“Exactly.” Mullins sipped his drink.

“Just tell me how these guys knew Reilly was
going to be at home that night?”

“We’re asking ourselves the same questions,
Tom.”

“FBI won’t talk to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Let’s see if they’ll talk to Oscar
Tierney.”

“Give it a shot. Tell him to say he needs
answers. He’s trying to protect his team.”

“Eddie, do me a favor and send me the phone
logs for Lydia Isackson.”

“Ummmm.”

“Come on, Eddie. My word, they don’t come
back to hurt you.”

“I suppose so.”

“Excellent! Send them to Roger, will
you?”

“Jesus, Tom!”

“I’ll get back to you, Eddie. Thanks.”
Mullins got up and went to the kitchen to make himself another one
and dialed Oscar Tierney.

“Good evening, Mr. Tierney, sorry to call so
late.”

“Anytime for you, my boy. What’s going
on?”

“Well, that’s what’s bothering me, sir. The
police and I don’t know a thing about the arrests in the case and I
was wondering if you’d heard anything.”

“The Regional guy, called me this afternoon
when they picked them up and said they think they got the
guys.”

“Did he say why he thought that? The big hole
here is only a few people knew Reilly was in the area that night.
Did they say how they knew?”

“Eavesdropping? These are some smart
guys.”

“But who were the Muslims eavesdropping on so
they’d know? Or is this just a big bunch of crap and the FBI has
nothing?”

“You want me to make a call?”

“Yes, I would, sir, because I’ve been down
this road before with these assholes and this is the type of thing
they do. Specifically, how solid is the case against these guys?
What do they have? Can we let our guard down?”

“I got that impression this afternoon, but
I’ll get some answers.”

“Thank you, Mr. Tierney. I look forward to
hearing from you.”

“No, thank you, Tom. This is why you’re
working for me.”

Mullins sat back down next to Liz and looked
over at Roger. “Were the games for money?” he said to Liz.

“Yea, Roger owes me two bucks.”

“Always get cash from him. He’s a weasel
about money. Go to bed Roger.”

“That’s because you only pay me minimum
wage,” Roger said as he walked out.

Liz and Mullins turned to each other and both
cracked up, laughing. “He’s a pistol, huh?” said Mullins.

“You’re very hard on him,” she said. Mullins
shook his head. “Can I ask you something? Why do you have Roger
around you if you’re going to be unkind to him?” she asked. “It’s
an unusual relationship.”

“I’ll tell you about Little Roger Goody.”

Chapter 32

"The Goodys lived next door to us my whole
life. When my Mom died when I was 10, Ilene became almost a
step-mom to me. The families were close. I would often go to their
house for dinner as my Dad worked long hours sometimes, as a Chief
in the SFPD. They were a childless couple for 18 years of marriage
when unexpectedly Roger showed up when I was 17. I had never been
around babies. I didn’t even know how to hold one. A new baby next
door was a big damn deal. I immediately fell in love with the kid.
I spent a lot of time holding him. I’d take him for a walk in the
stroller. He was so damn cute.

It wasn’t long before we realized that this
was a smart kid. He was unusually alert. He didn’t sleep a lot.
Then at about six months, he started talking. His parents always
talked to him like he was an adult. There was never any baby talk
in the Goody house, except by me. I could always get a laugh out of
him.

You know his father is the Dean of the
Psychology Department at Cal? That gave him access to the best
child development people in the world. Roger was in a program with
other gifted kids. He ran the class. A lot of gifted kids are shy
and withdrawn, not Roger. He was just the opposite, very outgoing
and engaging. Roger would remember the name of everything after
being told once. By the time he was nine months old, he was
reading. He loved puzzles and numbers. You know Sudoko? He was
solving those before he was a year old. I hate Sudoku. I can’t do
them! His parents exposed him to a lot of different things but
numbers were always his thing. He could give you the square root of
any number in seconds by five years old.

He was like a sponge. He wanted to know about
everything. He was a pest. The Goodys had a Chinese nanny who
taught him Mandarin, which he speaks fluently as well as God knows
what else. He has a friend who he speaks to in Vietnamese.

One of the things that happened very early is
that he latched onto me. If I went over to see him, he would cry
when I left. I loved being around him. I would do my homework and
he would sit in the room reading or drawing. He would entertain
himself. He was like my baby brother and that relationship just
continued. He’d read my college text books when I was doing
homework. His comprehension was unbelievable. We would discuss
things like he was an adult, when he was, like four.

He had a tutor at 5, and by 7 he had finished
up the course material through the 6th grade. Math and science were
easy for him. He thought about things from different angles. Stuff
the notes would say, if I had bothered to read them. He always was
on the computer. His mother used to have to take away and hide it
to get him off. He soon learned to network with other people
through the Internet. He loved online games and quickly mastered
them and moved onto the next one. He learned game theory and how to
design games. He still runs a game that he designed where he is the
godfather of a crime family. He doesn’t play it as much now, but at
one time there were 10,000 other people playing it.

You couldn’t send him to a regular school. He
got along well with other children, but was light years ahead of
them. He has always been home schooled but he would play sports
with other kids - not always successfully, but he’s had his
moments. He played Little League baseball up until last year. Too
busy playing real cops and robbers for that kind of thing now. I
rolled my eyes.

He likes chemistry and physics. He doesn’t
have a long attention span for various subjects lately. He learns a
lot about a subject and then goes onto something else. He’s very
knowledgeable about electrical engineering and architecture. His
mother sees that he is always reading something and will discuss it
with him. He knows the Classics. He hasn’t latched onto any one
thing. He can play the piano but isn’t a prodigy. He has an
electric guitar but just isn’t crazy about music. His parents could
get him into a college, but he won’t go. Since he’s home schooled,
his mother lets him study whatever he wants.

The big thing lately is Law. Can you imagine
a twelve year old reading law books? He met my attorney a couple of
years ago. Saw all the books in his office and started pumping him
about what an attorney does. Next thing I know, he’s into it. It’s
not just criminal law. It’s contracts, tax. I just don’t get it. I
asked Laverney to test his knowledge. He had him sit in with law
students in study groups. He said he wouldn’t be surprised to have
him be able to pass the bar. He’s been at it on and off for a
year.

He really gets off on tangents. He went
through a Buddhism phase last year. He would quote Buddha to me all
the time. He loves Ornithology, the study of birds. He’ll give me
the proper scientific name of various birds just walking along the
street. When he doesn’t know something, he’ll immediately look it
up online and it goes in the vault, never to be forgotten. Last
month we were out doing something and he begins telling me about
the mapping of the genome of the Zebra Finch. After about an hour
of that, I called for a cease and desist. Sometimes he wants me to
know about something, other times he’s just thinking out loud.

He seems to like only one thing consistently,
that’s being around me, doing what I’m doing. Often he’ll come over
and see what I’m doing and offer to do it for me. If I’m involved
in something, he wants in. Lately he’s been doing a lot more of the
day to day management of the agency, the endless routine stuff that
drives me crazy. He reads all the office reports and handles my
office email. He’ll respond as me and then blind copy me. He even
writes like me. If it’s something I should know about, he’ll text
me or come to talk to me about it.

The biggest problem with Roger is he gets
whatever he wants. He’s got everyone eating out of the palm of his
hand. He’s cute and smart and knows it. I won’t stand for any of
his shit. The parents actually like this arrangement since they’ve
basically lost control of him. He’s deviously manipulative and
usually I can see it a mile away because I know how he thinks. I
don’t always get why he’s being manipulative, but just know he’s
fucking with me for some reason. I think it was Aristotle who said,
“There was never a genius without a touch of madness.” I put up
with absolutely no shit from him because when you give him an inch,
he takes a mile. He has accepted that. The only thing that slows
him down is to threaten to not allow him to be in the office or
around me."