“But we’ve met, right?” I say. “Seth Cole.”
“No,” Debray says, shaking my hand. “I don’t think…”
“In London,” I say, cocking my head and snapping my fingers. “That’s it, Debray, right? Martin Debray. At the Dorchester Hotel. Oh, you were pretty messed up, but I’d lost my wallet somewhere in their bar and you paid my bar tab. I was already checked out. Had to catch the first flight out. God. Small world.”
He brightens and says, “That’s where I stay.”
“Well, thanks again,” I say. “Talk about embarrassing.”
“Not a problem,” Debray says. He sees me looking at Allen. “Oh, I’m sorry, this is Allen Steffano.”
I shake Allen’s hand and say, “Listen, I’ve got some passes to the commissioner’s private party tonight at House of Blues. Any interest?”
They look at each other and their mouths drop open.
“The NFL commissioner?” Martin says.
I nod and, taking the tickets out of my suit coat pocket, I say, “Lots of players will be there. A few of the owners. How about if I meet you there at ten and buy you back a couple drinks?”
Martin looks at Allen and smiles. He looks back at me and says, “Great.”
“Sounds good to me,” Allen says.
I make a show of extending my wrist so they can see my gold Cartier watch and say, “Great. Ten, then. I’ll find you.”
That evening, I have dinner with Woody Johnson-the owner of the New York Jets-at Commander’s Palace, where the New York Strip steak is as thick as my fist. The truth is that after the crap I ate for twenty years in jail, I can’t get enough of the taste of rare meat and red wine.
It’s just past nine-thirty when we stoke up cigars for a short stroll down Prytania Street to close the deal. The air is cool, and the smell of tobacco smoke is refreshing after a day of the swampy New Orleans humidity. When we’re finished, I raise my hand and a long black Humvee rolls up to the curb, appearing from nowhere. Bert hops out of the back wearing a tuxedo and opens the door. Woody stares and shakes his head at me, saying he’ll walk back when I offer to drop him off.
Five hundred dollars got us a motorcycle escort for the night. Behind the cop’s spinning blue light, we slice through a Quarter swollen with traffic and milling with drunken sports fans, making it to House of Blues by ten.
I see the boys standing at the bar drinking and swiveling their chins around like bobblehead dolls at the star players and the girls decked out in tight tops with bare midriffs. I greet them with warm handshakes and order another round. The drinks haven’t arrived before the commissioner-who’s standing close by-breaks off his conversation with Falcons owner Arthur Blank to introduce me to his wife, Jan.
“It looks like Seth is going to be the new owner of the Jets,” he says to his wife.
Allen looks like someone just tossed a drink in his face. The commissioner introduces Arthur Blank and his wife, Stephanie, who grabs Michael Vick. The boys’ eyes are wide and they set their drinks down on the bar and stand up to shake hands. Small talk, and then we’re alone again.
Allen says, “You’re buying the Jets?”
“It’s not official, yet,” I say, sipping a Heineken.
“He’s buying the Jets,” Allen says to Martin.
“Allen plays at SU,” Martin says, pointing at his friend with a bottle of beer. “He wants to be Chad Pennington.”
“I love the Jets,” Allen says, his eyes shining.
“To the Jets,” I say, raising my glass and touching it to their bottles of beer. I have to force myself not to stare at Allen’s face. The nose, the shape of the eyes. All Lexis.
Santana croons from the stage and the crowd hoots and cheers. Music and smoke swirl together, soaking up the beams of flashing colored lights. Red. Blue. Yellow. Green. We talk in shouts above the music.
“You really play?” I say, looking into his eyes and not at his face.
“Quarterback,” Allen says, looking right back at me.
“He’s got a chance to be the starter this year,” Martin says, raising his bottle and clinking it against his friend’s.
“What are you studying?” I ask.
“Well, I’m gonna go to law school,” he says, “but right now I’m actually studying painting.”
“Painting to law school?” I say. “That’s different.”
“My dad wanted me to study finance,” he says. “Finance and football. He was pissed when he heard, but my mom calmed him down. Anyway, I get to paint for four years. Then I either make it in the NFL or it’s law school. Something useful.”
“There are plenty of useless lawyers,” I say. “Not enough good painters, though.”
Allen cocks his head to one side and says, “You sound like my mom.”
I keep the drinks coming fast, and after an hour we’re all best friends. The boys are going to join me for the game tomorrow in my box on the fifty-yard line. The drinking becomes a small unspoken contest with me the loser. Finally, Allen is swaying. Martin’s eyes go in and out of focus and he looks at his bottle and mouths the words on the Budweiser label to himself.
I look at my watch. Midnight. When I look up, I see her. A woman moving through the crowd attracting the attention of every man within twenty feet. Her hair is long and straight. Brassy blonde. It’s hard to decide which is more impressive, her figure or her golden face with its powder blue eyes and red lips. She isn’t tall, but wears a pair of white pumps that match her snug satin dress. She stops when she sees Allen, and stares. A smile pulls back her delicate lips to show perfect white teeth.
When the girl turns and disappears into the crowd, Allen grins at me. I nod and he staggers after her. Another girl sits down next to Martin. He raises his head and dives in. Bert appears and I tell him to take Martin and his new friend back to the hotel. I leave by the back, my shoes clanging softly on the wrought iron stair that takes me down into the brick alley. I jog for two blocks before I spot the white dress. Allen is right there with her, stumbling to keep up. His head bobs and his hands dance in the space between them. She laughs at him in a high-pitched chirp, then touches his cheek. He takes her arm and they keep walking. I follow, staying on the other side of the street and half a block back.
They plunge into the mob on Bourbon Street, but the girl’s dress is like a beacon. They go up one block then leave the throng, turning down St. Peter. By the time I reach the turn, they are at the dark end of the street, a bad and dangerous place where the blight of the battered Creole cottages is disguised by the starlight. The din of Bourbon Street is almost distant now and what was only a moment ago the sound of celebration has taken on a fiendish quality. Mad laughter. Breaking glass. Trumpets and grating shrieks.
A dull breeze rattles the leaves overhead. Shadows stir and begin to spill from the porches and out into the street. Dark shapes of men materialize and close in a loose ring around Allen and the girl in the white dress. Perfectly orchestrated.
I stop in my tracks to watch.
38
THE HALL ON THE TOP FLOOR is long with red carpet and gold trim around the doors. Laughter floats out from behind a door. A tray of chicken wing bones and an empty beer bottle rests outside another. Allen has a suite of rooms down the hall from me. Debray is passed out in his own room, the girl already gone. Allen lets his arm slip from my shoulder and he falls onto his own bed, rolling face up. He smells like alcohol and his eyes shine up at me.
“My father says, ‘I always have to bail you out,’” Allen says in a slurred voice. “But you bailed me out this time.”
“Happy to do it,” I say, grunting as I pull off his shoes.
“That was some stuff,” he says, his hands chopping at the air, sound effects squirting through his lips until they roll into a merry chuckle. “Bruce Lee stuff, right?”
“Something like it,” I say, backing away from him, feeling for the door.