The Red Zone Read online

  "Sit down, Chris,'' Madison said after standing to shake his hand.

  "I'm sorry I have to be the one to tell you this," she said, preferring to get straight to the point, "but the executive committee has decided to terminate the sports agency, and, along with that, your position . . . I'm sorry."

  Only the turmoil in Pelo's eyes hinted at the agony he must be feeling. Outwardly, he was fine. Madison was impressed.

  She handed him the file. It was business, she told herself that again.

  "Is there anything I can do?" Pelo said. "I mean, would they reconsider, in any way, do you think? Could I work in another area? The tax department? Maybe even estate planning?"

  Madison shook her head sadly. "I don't think so," she said. "They're planning on cutting back everywhere they can, Chris. I have to tell you that they wanted me to run this agency with you, but it wouldn't work. It was a desperation thing with the executive committee. It would only have prolonged the inevitable for a few more months. I'm not an agent. That's why they had me be the one to tell you, to punish me for not trying to become one. You know as well as anyone that it's not a thing you can do if your heart's not in it."

  They both stared at the floor for a few moments before Pelo remembered himself and rose politely.

  "Thank you, Madison," he said, extending his hand.

  "Huh?" she said, caught off guard.

  "No," he explained, holding up the letter, "not for this. I mean just thanks for treating me the way you did. I know the only reason I was in this firm was because of Marty. He was eccentric, let's face it. I'm a Mexican, middle-aged ex-cop trying to be a big-time sports agent."

  Pelo let out a good-natured chuckle in honor of his old boss.

  "But you were probably the only other person in this firm who treated me like I belonged here. You never acted uncomfortable when I passed you in the hall or met you in Marty's office. You acted as if I was just another lawyer. I appreciate that. Goodbye."

  Madison almost stopped him as he passed quickly through her doorway. But then he was gone, and after a heavy sigh and a moment of thought, she lifted a thick trial file marked FEARS from her drawer and began to read through it.

  Chapter 2

  That same afternoon, in another office, in another state, a patient lay stretched out on a long leather lounge chair. Although the chair engulfed most of the people who lay on it, this particular man seemed to barely fit. His eyes were closed and his head was tilted back, exposing the long edge of a well-sculpted chin. Except for the gentle rubbing of one hand over the other in a repetitive motion, he appeared to be completely relaxed. A silver-gilded paddle fan turned lazily above him on the ceiling. Even the light in the room was soothing. The tall mullioned windows overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway were draped with two layers of heavy brown curtains that seemed like long eighteenth-century capes. Only the soft orange hues of the harsh sunlight outside were allowed to pass into the room.

  The walls were lined with book-laden shelves, and an impressive collection of original pre-Columbian statues and masks was displayed throughout the room. The books were bound in faded red, brown, and green leather and emitted a musty smell reminiscent of an old library, a safe place. Jewel-toned Tiffany lamps adorned various carved wooden tables positioned among the richly upholstered furniture.

  The doctor sat in a crimson wing-backed chair worn as comfortable as an old baseball mitt. Unlike everything else in the room, the doctors face was severe. He had a bristling gray crew cut and wore a pair of chrome wire-framed glasses that seemed composed entirely of acute angles. His voice, however, was as gentle as the whispers of air stirred by the overhead fan.

  The doctor surreptitiously looked at the clock he kept on a maple hutch just beyond his patient's line of sight. Time was almost up. And, as was always the case when time was short, his questions and comments became more pointed, more provocative.

  "There are things you're not telling me," the doctor said.

  The patient was silent.

  "We've been over your feelings of guilt for what happened to your mother and brother many times, as well as the situation with your father, and even the woman and her boy," the doctor said. "But there seems to be something more, something you're not telling me."

  "Yes," he finally said. "But it's not me. There are things that have happened, things that I think are going to happen, that I can't control."

  "If you can't control them, then why do these things haunt you?" the doctor asked, knowing full well the answer.

  "It's not me, but then, it is, isn't it? I mean, I know I'm responsible ..."

  "We've talked about your responsibility before," the doctor said. "There are some things we cannot control. Others we can."

  "It's like the red zone. I think people are going to die."

  "In your dreams?" the doctor said, puzzled.

  "No, for real."

  The doctor puckered his lips and said nothing. The things that were said to him by his patients were confidential. He had a duty to respect that confidentiality. He knew there was also a duty, if he could, to prevent harm to others. He was now hearing that people were going to die. Unlike many of his patients, the man before him was not prone to exaggeration. The doctor wanted to help people, but he shunned danger. He had a wife and a child. He had worked hard to develop the kind of practice that was safe from the dark things he'd learned about as a resident. A hysterical suicide was as close as he ever intended to get to violence.

  "And you feel . . . responsible for this?" the doctor finally asked, tentatively.

  "I will be responsible," he said with finality.

  The doctor sat for almost a minute, watching the clock that would save him. He focused on the hands of his patient. The almost continuous motion of hand washing was a common neurotic manifestation of overwhelming guilt. This was easily understood. It was also a much healthier outlet than killing.

  "We'll have to talk about this some more the next time," the doctor said gently. "I'm afraid our time is up. In the meantime, continue to focus your anger and your guilt and your negative feelings into your work. This is an advantage you have that many others do not."

  The doctor liked to end on a positive note, so as he rose, marking the end of their session, he added, "It is a wonderful outlet."

  The patient raised his bulk up off the chair with unusual grace for a man his size. The diminutive, sharp-looking doctor reached up and patted the big man halfway up his broad muscular back.

  "Who do you play this weekend?" the doctor said, making light conversation as he ushered the man out the door, as if he hadn't heard what he clearly did.

  "Atlanta," he answered.

  "Ah," said the doctor, "the Hawks. . ."

  "No," he said, "thats the basketball team. Its the Atlanta Falcons."

  The doctor gave an apologetic shrug. Luther Zorn didnt care. He had yet to meet a shrink who was a true fan of the game. In a way, he thought that might be why he didnt mind talking with them.

  Chapter 3

  Madison rolled into the driveway of her new home in West Lake Hills, Texas. She lived with her husband, Cody Grey, and her son from her first marriage, Jo-Jo, in a gated community that had its own private golf course and country club. The house sat on a hillside and had a spectacular view of the Austin skyline. The hilly landscape was not at all dissimilar to that of Bel Air, the exclusive enclave adjacent to Los Angeles. The house, designed in the style of an elegant European chateau, was relatively modest for the neighborhood. Still, the lawn and shrubbery were impeccably sculpted.

  As she pulled into the garage Madison saw that Cody's pickup truck was already there. She looked at her watch and realized that she was late. She hoisted her briefcase from the passenger seat of her Volvo sedan and hustled inside. Cody and Jo-Jo were halfway through dinner. Madison stopped to kiss them both before heaving a sigh and slumping down into her own chair. Their housekeeper, Bess, quickly brought Madison a plate of food.

  "Mom, can I watch game film w
ith Cody?" Jo-Jo asked before Madison had a chance to take a second breath.

  Madison looked up from her plate at her husband. He gave her an innocent shrug.

  "How about homework?" she said.

  "Did it, Ma," Jo-Jo replied.

  "All of it?"

  "Yup."

  "Okay," Madison said. "Whore you guys scouting this week?"

  "Were playing Sam Houston this week and Cody's got a film of them slaughtering East Side," Jo-Jo said with an enthusiasm most nine-year-olds reserved for collecting snakes.

  Cody was the West Lake Hills High School football coach. After playing for nine years in the NFL as a star defensive back for Austin's own Texas Outlaws, a ruined knee forced him to retire. While teammates dreamed of post-football careers in TV or the movies, Cody's sole ambition had been to teach and coach high school kids. The West Lake Hills job opened after the former coach's failure to produce a winning team for six straight years.

  Madison supported her husband completely. She admired his desire to work with kids and she knew he was more than just a coach to the players on his team and a teacher to the students in his classroom. She was even understanding when they had to cut their honeymoon short by a few days so he could return for summer workouts. Recently, though, their different career paths had been the source of some tension.

  The biggest problem was the fact that she earned more than six times Cody's salary. Because his first wife had been so preoccupied with material wealth, Madison suspected that Cody had developed a subconscious aversion to prosperity. It also seemed to Madison that the physical infatuation they had enjoyed during the first months of their relationship was beginning to wane. Now, some of the realities of a marriage and its inherent compromises were beginning to set in.

  Originally, she didn't have a hard time convincing Cody to live in their present house. But lately, he talked about wanting something a little more middle class. That, however, wasn't what Madison was used to, and it wasn't what she'd worked for. It took a lot of long hard hours to make her kind of salary, and she wanted tq reward herself by living comfortably.

  Cody, for his part, was suddenly concerned that they live more in line with how other high school football coaches lived. Football coaches, he had explained, didn't need much, just a couple of sweat suits, a windbreaker, and some sneakers in their closet, and a late-model pickup in the driveway. According to Cody, country club living and high school football were not compatible. It was one more reason for Madison to dislike the game. She considered it bizarre that both her husbands had been football players. She had no affinity for the game, or the stars it created. Still, she wasn't fooling anyone, even herself. There was also some indefinite quality about the kind of man who would play that game that undeniably attracted her.

  Jo-Jo, on the other hand, had been an unabashed fan of the game since he knew what a football was. He was thrilled that Cody was the coach, and he talked incessantly about playing and coaching himself one day.

  But Madison was happy that Cody and her son had a common interest, even if it was a game where young boys and grown men alike ran around on the grass trying to hurt each other. Football enabled Cody and Jo-Jo to form a bond much sooner than if Cody had simply been a high school history teacher and nothing more. That bond was critical to Madison because while she adored her husband, Jo-Jo was her only child and, despite her career, Madison had a distracting maternal instinct. That instinct told her it was critical for her son to grow up in a house where a man was present, and Cody was as good as any man she had ever known.

  And of course she needed Cody for herself as well. As strong as she was, Madison wanted a man, one man, whom she could count on to be there with her through the good as well as the bad. It was hard sometimes, maintaining the precarious balance of hard-nosed lawyer and softhearted woman. Madison wondered if her two sides weren't mutually exclusive. She hoped not. She wanted Cody in her life.

  Despite their problems, she loved him completely. She'd come a long way since her first husband. Jo-Jo's father was exciting and handsome, but he'd turned into a monster. Her first marriage seemed like another life altogether.

  "Madison? Did you hear me?" Cody's voice broke through her reverie. She smiled at him, happy just to see his face looking at her. He wore his dark hair short and his deep hazel eyes seemed somehow to be lit from within. His tan face was marked with lines of care that sometimes made him look older than his thirty-two years. But still, he was handsome, strong, and above all, extremely kind.

  "No, I'm sorry, honey," she said. "I was thinking."

  "I said Chris Pelo called," Cody told her, roughly swiping something from the corner of his mouth with a napkin. "It seemed important. Is everything okay?"

  Madison furrowed her brow. "Everything's fine," she said. "Except I'm not thrilled that Chris is calling me at home about something I wrapped up with him already at the office."

  'Well," Cody shrugged, "maybe it's important. It sure sounded like it."

  "I'm sure it's important to him," she said, taking another bite of her food.

  "So, what's up?" Cody asked.

  Madison sighed and set down her fork before recounting her meeting with the executive committee and how she subsequently broke the bad news to Pelo. When she was finished, she gave her husband a sad smile and continued her meal. She looked up after a moment of silence. He was staring at her.

  "What?" she said.

  "Nothing," Cody replied calmly, looking to her son. "You ready for some film, big guy?"

  'Yfeah!" Jo-Jo said, hopping up from the table.

  "Okay, you go get the projector set up and I'll be in in a minute," Cody said.

  "So, what?" Madison said when her son had left the kitchen.

  "So, just that I'm kind of surprised, that's all," Cody told her gently "At?"

  "At the fact that you could have helped Chris Pelo keep his job, but you didn't," Cody said frankly. "I mean, he's a hell of a guy. I just... I don't know, it's not like you, Madison."

  Madison set her fork down on her plate a little harder than she meant to and it rang out loudly. "He's a hell of a guy? I don't know what that has to do with my career. bu're supposed to be on my side, Cody. I can't go around saving everybody's job any more than you can."

  Cody looked at her dispassionately and said quietly, "You're a little overexcited, aren't you? You sound like you're in court or something."

  "Yes, I'm excited, Cody!" she said. "I'm excited because of what I said. I don't want to be Chris Pelo's savior. I'm a lawyer, not an agent. I have no intention of being an agent. If Chris Pelo decides to go into house painting, should I go out and buy a ladder and a can of paint in case he needs my help? Look at what you're asking--"

  Cody held his hands up high in surrender as he got up from the table.

  "I am on your side, Madison," he said. "I'm not trying to tell you to change all your plans, but I think you could do what you want and help him out without even breaking a sweat. He's a great guy. He just cant close a deal. He never could. Thats why he and Marty were good together. If you just helped him a little, I think he could keep that thing going. I know when I was a player, I loved dealing with Chris. He was on top of everything. But it was Marty who got people to sign on. He did with me, anyway. You could do that, too. I think you know it already, though. That's why you're so upset."

  Cody leaned over and put his hand on Madison's cheek before giving her a kiss on the forehead.

  "Don't say I'm not on your side, Madison," he told her gently. "I'm always on your side."

  Madison reached up and held his hand tightly against her face.

  "Good," Cody said. "I'm going to go watch some film with Jo-Jo before he has to go to bed, okay? We'll talk later."

  "Okay-

  Madison sat alone in the kitchen for a minute pushing her food. Then she set her fork down again and got up for the phone.

  "Hello?" came the thickly accented voice of Chris Pelo's wife.

  "Is Chris there?"
/>   "Yes . . . Please, un momento."

  "Hello?"

  "Chris, this is Madison."

  "Madison, I know you don't like to be called at home, but I've got an idea," Pelo blurted out desperately. Before Madison could get a word in, he continued rapidly "It wouldn't be much of a burden on you. I promise. Just please listen. Marty had a client. His name is Luther Zorn. He plays for the Marauders. He's a great player and his contract is up this year. I just found out that the team wants to redo his deal now, in the middle of the season. They want to renegotiate his deal before he becomes a free agent at the end of the season. If I can get him, just him, his contract alone would pay for the agency for the next three or four years. Just one contract! Now I know I can get a meeting with him, just based on my relationship with him in the past."

  "Chris--" Madison tried to sneak a word in, but Chris was speaking too fast.

  "Madison, I know you don't want to have anything to do with this. I know you're a trial lawyer and you're busy. I know all about the Fears trial. And the rape case. But I was thinking. I could help you make up for any time you spent on this by doubling up and helping you do legwork or research for your next trial. I'll do anything, and I know I can help some way. If you just help me close this deal with Zorn. It could legitimize me. But I'm not going to kid myself. I probably don't stand a chance to do it without some help."