The Draft (17 page)

“And I see your running game's a little thin,” Jon said.
Last in the league in yards per run and yards overall
, he thought.
Calling their running game “a little thin” is being saintly.
“How about Aaron Holloway? He's in his second year and looking pretty good. We simply don't need another guy in that position.”

“Okay…”

“Finally, I can give you three draft picks—our second from this year, and our third for next year. That's a total of four players, none of whom should put a strain on your wallet.”

He could hear Greer mumbling, going over everything in his mind.

“Yeah, that's pretty good,” he said finally. “That'd sure help us out.”

“Great. So we have a deal?”

“Uh, no.”

It was said with such decisiveness that Jon found himself dumbstruck.

“No?”

“That's right.”

Jon tapped the point of his pencil on his legal pad. “Not enough?”

“Not nearly enough.”

“Not
nearly
enough? Four players for
one guy
? A guy who has only played in
eight games
?”

“That's right. I know it doesn't sound nice, but I know what you're trying to do, what package you're trying to put together. You want McKinley. Even better—at least from my perspective, is the fact that you
need
him. Am I right?”

Now Jon paused. And every moment of silence that passed, Jon knew, put him in a shittier position.

“Well, I don't know about
nee
—”

“More, Jon,” Greer said in a tone that was absolutely chilling. “If you want me to give this guy to you instead of the Chiefs, I want more.”

There was another long silence, until Jon finally said, “Okay, let me take a look at what I have.”

*   *   *

Brendan Cavanaugh returned to his office with mug of fresh coffee. The mug, of course, bore the Broncos' logo. His secretary walked in with a pile of mail bound by a rubber band.

“Here's today's,” she said, dropping it into his wire basket.

He pulled off the rubber band and began sifting. A few magazines, a catalog, a letter from an agent, a letter from the league … and then a nice-looking envelope with a name on the return address that had a familiar ring—Robert Macintosh.

He took a brass opener from the drawer and slit the top. Inside were three items—a cover letter, a business card, and a résumé.

The business card caught his attention simply because it had the Ravens' logo on it. Setting it aside, he read through the cover letter. Macintosh was wondering if the Broncos had any positions available now or in the near future. His tone was polite and professional, but between the lines was the voice of someone who was looking to escape. He gave no official reason as to
why
he sought employment elsewhere; no “I'm getting married and moving up there,” or “The company has announced a series of layoffs starting in two weeks.” No explanation at all.

More clues could be found in the résumé itself—Macintosh had been with the Ravens a while. Too long, in fact, to not have reached the next rung on the ladder. For whatever reason, he felt his time in Baltimore had run its course. The future lay elsewhere. Maybe someone had taken a disliking to him. It happened all the time in the league. If one of your superiors didn't like you, you were finished. Cavanaugh knew this all too well—he'd held more people down than he could remember.

But this was more than that. This was opportunity knocking. In a matter of seconds, Brendan Cavanaugh had a fully formed plan in his mind. Every nuance, every detail—and if it played out correctly, it would pay huge dividends. If it didn't … well, he knew how to protect himself in that event. But it would. He was going to make sure of that.

He replaced the contents of the letter and, smiling, slipped the envelope into his briefcase.

*   *   *

Garrick Hart was unhappy. Nothing new there, Freddie Friedman thought. But when a player of Hart's caliber was unhappy, you had to deal with it. As much as you wanted to tell him to grow up and shut up, you couldn't. Not when he was making just over four million dollars a year and 15 percent of it was yours. When a client like that had a problem, you went from agent to parent, best friend, and/or therapist. Freddie didn't like it, but he didn't hate it, either. It simply went with the job.

“I realize they haven't finalized the lease yet, but trust me, they will. In the meantime, loan your girlfriend one of your other cars. It shouldn't be for more than a week or two. Just make sure your wife doesn't find out. The last thing you need right now is marital problems.”

He moved freely around the office with the aid of a telephone headset. It had become a permanent part of his anatomy. He had three power packs for it—one main, one spare, and one for emergencies. Few things made him more nervous than the prospect of a dead battery. The mere thought of using an “old-style” telephone with a cord, or even a cordless phone that had to be supported with your shoulder, made him cringe. He liked to have both hands free to do other things. If he couldn't do more than one thing at a time he got restless.

“Yes, yes … I understand she wants that model, but it isn't available in America. The team is having one shipped from Germany this week. I saw a copy of the flight manifest. It should be here in a day or two.…”

His office was spacious and tastefully decorated, but not overly so. The centerpiece was a kidney-shaped desk buried under piles of paperwork. Behind it, through a gigantic single pane of glass, lay the misty Adirondack Mountains. The view was breathtaking by anyone's standards, like a postcard come to life. Freddie admired it from time to time but suspected he didn't appreciate it as much as others would. Visitors always commented on it, though.

“If the car isn't delivered by the beginning of next week, give me a call back and I'll rattle some cages.…”

He liked to keep a casual atmosphere around the office. There were only twelve other people in the company—Good Sports, Ltd.—so there was no need for a tight-ass corporate mentality. On most days he wore a dress shirt (pastels with a white collar) but no tie, and suspenders but no blazer. He removed his shoes the moment he came in, as he secretly loved the feeling of the freshly vacuumed carpet under his silk socks.

While Hart continued to whine (but was losing steam, thank goodness), Freddie's secretary came in. She was hunched over as she struggled to keep the day's mail—a pile of letters and a few packages, one of which was Pearly Pressner's—against her chest. She hurried to nearest corner of the desk and dropped the load just in time.

As she turned to leave, Freddie expertly pressed the mute button on the transmitter and said, “Janey, could you please dig up the files for Grant Cole, Michael Harris, and Todd Blakely? I'm especially interested in Todd's contract. There's a conditional clause I'd like to review before I call him this afternoon. Thanks.” Just before he disengaged the mute button, he added, “Oh, and please wish Tommy a happy birthday for me, would you? Give him a copy of that new Tom Clancy book and put it on my account.”

In all of her thirty-two years, Janey Davidson had never known anyone with Friedman's power of retention. The Blakely contract was a prime example—it'd been finalized almost three years ago, and Freddie hadn't glanced at it once since then. Yet he had just recalled a tiny facet of it as if it'd been drafted yesterday. And he always remembered her husband's birthday every year, without fail, no matter how much other stuff was going on.

She went out, and Freddie reluctantly returned to his babysitting.

“Right, uh-huh … I understand. Yes, I know. I know they are. Well, don't worry about it, I'll take care of it. Okay. And don't forget that you have a photo shoot with Adidas on the twenty-ninth. You missed the last one and they were pretty pissed. What's that? No, I don't think she'd be interested … right, okay. Have a great time in St. Croix. Have a few on me. Talk to you later.”

He terminated the connection, called Hart a douchebag, and began digging through the pile of new mail, all the while placing another call.

“Janey! Are you having trouble finding those files?”

“No,” came her muted reply from the next room. The door was open, but just a crack. “Just give me a minute!”

He got behind his desk while the call went through, grumbling something about minutes being money, and went through the letters. All junk, he decided, and tossed them aside.

The first two packages weren't much better. One of them, he could tell by the return address, was a signed jersey from one of his clients who played for the Rams. Freddie asked for it as a get-well gift for the twelve-year-old son of one of his employees. The other package came from the NBA and looked semiofficial, but not official enough to warrant immediate attention. It, too, was relegated to a secondary sector of the desk.

The final item was a cardboard box that shined from all the clear tape that'd been wrapped around it. The handwriting was nearly illegible; the sender was lucky it got here, Friedman thought. He glanced at the name on the return address—Joe Pressner.

Pressner? Why is that name familiar?

He took a folding knife from his pocket and began slicing.

Pressner … Pressner …

His heart sank when he saw the videotapes. He got unsolicited “showcase” material all the time. His first impulse in these instances was to have Janey send them back with a polite rejection note. But he rarely followed that impulse—and he didn't follow it now, either. Not because of the familiarity of the name Pressner, but because you just never knew. There was a lot of talent out there, and Freddie had been around long enough to know the age-old adage about the cream always rising to the top was a load of bullshit. The ugly truth was sometimes it got stuck on the way up, and other times it never got off the bottom to begin with.

He unfolded Pearly's letter and sat down. At the same moment he heard a young female voice say, “Hello?”

“Hi, this is Freddie. Is Tory around?”

“Hold on, I'll get him.”

He read through the letter as he waited, thinking how familiar the sentiments were—
I feel my boy has the potential to play in the NFL … he's good but no one has noticed him yet …
There didn't seem to be anything new here. There were a lot of tapes in the box. Maybe—just maybe—if he had time at the end of the day he'd check one out.

Then his eyes landed on the name of Quincy Pressner and stuck there.

No …

“Yeah, hello?” said a deep, gruff voice, but Freddie barely heard it. “Hey, Freddie, are you there, man?”

“Huh? Oh … sorry, Tory. What's up?”

“What's up?! You called
me.
”

“I what? Oh, right. I'm sorry. Hey, can I call you back?” Whatever he'd wanted Tory Trask, Kansas City's perennial Pro Bowl tackle, for, it could wait.

“What? Look, Freddie, I'm kind of busy right n—”

“Thanks, Tory,” he said. His voice was distant, dreamy. “I'll talk to you in a few.”

He terminated the connection before Trask had a chance to object and pulled the headset down around his neck. Then he read the letter again … and again and again. He considered the possibility that it was a practical joke; a little something from one of his clients or that one peckerhead VP from the league offices in NYC who considered himself something of a comedian.

No … this is no joke.

Within five minutes the Adirondacks were hidden behind an electronic sliding curtain and the lights were dimmed. By the time he finished watching the first tape, he was reaching for the phone.

*   *   *

Eric Ross was a congenial man of sixty-two. He first met Freddie Friedman back in 1988. At that time Freddie wasn't much more than a greasy-haired kid who spoke too fast and knew too little. But the more reserved Ross had a gut feeling the youngster might just make something of himself in the agenting business.

The fact that Ross turned out to be right came as a surprise to no one—he'd been the top scout of his day, as close to a legend as one could get in that discipline. He'd predicted the ascent of many greats—Dan Marino, Jerry Rice, Joe Montana. Every time he got “that feeling” about someone, that someone turned into a superstar.

He spent the bulk of his career with the Buffalo Bills, toward the end of the era when there was still a modicum of job security in the league. He began as a ball boy and worked his way up, and by his tenth year he was their head scout.

He stayed in touch with his friends after retiring in 1997, and that included Freddie Friedman. He did freelance consultation for him from time to time, helping Freddie avoid various disasters. One time he talked him out of signing a running back who would eventually be drafted with the first overall pick. Freddie was furious, but Ross told him in his normally relaxed way to sit tight and see what happened. Sure enough the kid broke his leg in only his second game. The fracture didn't heal properly, and he never played another down. Freddie could never figure out how Eric foresaw that one, but he never doubted him again.

Now he sat on the other side of Freddie's desk, Scotch in hand, dressed in the standard uniform of the comfortably retired—loafers, cotton slacks, and a polo shirt. The latter bore a Bills logo. He was still a company man at heart.

“Do you still talk with any of the boys?” Friedman asked.

“Sometimes.” He sipped his Scotch. “But it's tough, you know, with my busy schedule.” He grinned broadly.

“Oh yeah, I can imagine. Golf every morning, dinner out every night. Sounds like torture.”

“It is, believe me.”

“Who have you seen on the field lately that you like?”