The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(2)

Inherited trait.

“Five laps, for real?” Carlos said.

“Or ten if we’re still having this conversation ten seconds from now.”

When practice had started in August for the Hunters Point Bears, they’d treated me like some sort of substitute teacher, thinking they really could get away with things, maybe because I was a woman. But it hadn’t taken long for me, the political science teacher at Hunters Point, to show them differently.

After today’s practice, Carlos walked over to me, helmet in hand, and said, “You know you sound like Bill Belichick when you keep telling us to do our job, right?”

I grinned at him.

“That candy-ass?”

I was the last one on the field, as always, starting to make the long walk toward the back entrance of the school, when I saw what looked like my whole team running at me, the guys still in their pads.

Chris Tinelli was the one who got to me first, out of breath, face red. Eyes red. He had his phone in his right hand.

I never brought my phone with me to practice. Once I got to the field it was all football for me, same as for my players.

“Coach Jenny,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Chris, what’s wrong?”

“Your dad died. It’s all over social media.”

He looked like he might cry. Maybe I would later. Just not now. Not in front of the players. I was the coach. A tough guy.

Another inherited trait.

“How?” I said.

“They say he drowned.”





Three



DANNY WOLF STARED DOWN at the field from the floor-to-ceiling window behind his desk, watching the Wolves practice.

His general manager, Mike Sawchuck, was standing next to him. This was going to be Mike’s last year with the Wolves, even if the poor bastard didn’t know it yet. Another guy Danny’s father had hired who thought he had more tenure than a Supreme Court justice.

“Your dad loved the view from up here when this was still his office,” Sawchuck said.

Here we go, Danny thought.

Now he contemplated throwing himself out the window.

“It’s not his office anymore,” Danny said, “as often as you seem to forget that fact.”

“C’mon, Danny Boy. I know who’s calling the shots around here now.”

Danny Wolf turned to glare at him.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?”

“Hey, your dad does.”

“I rest my case.”

“I didn’t come up here looking for a fight,” Sawchuck said. “We’re a team, you and me.”

I should fire his ass now.

“Not fighting, Mike,” Danny said. “Just explaining. And not to put too fine a point on things, you and I aren’t a team. We were never a team. You’re an employee.”

They both watched now as the team’s aging quarterback, Ted Skyler, wildly overthrew the team’s number one draft choice, DeLavarious Harmon.

Harmon had been wide open behind the defense twenty yards down the field. Skyler threw it thirty, at least. Ted Skyler had stayed around too long; the general manager had stayed around far too long. So had Joe Wolf. Sometimes this place felt like the NFL version of an assisted-living facility.

Sometimes when Mike Sawchuck started to get weepy about the good old days, Danny wanted to throw him out the window in front of them.

“Lot of new guys this season,” Sawchuck said, desperate to change the subject back to football. “But even if we get off to a slow start, in our division we’re still gonna have a shot. I don’t see anybody running away with the thing.”

“Really. Even with Gramps still under center?”

“Danny,” Sawchuck said, “you’re the one who wanted to give Ted one more year.”

“No,” Danny Wolf snapped at Sawchuck. “No, you and my father wanted to give him one more year and convinced me to go along.” He put a hand to his heart. “All so we could win one for Joe.”

“I thought that’s what we all wanted.”

“Get over it.”

Sawchuck said he was going downstairs to watch the end of practice from the field. As soon as he was out the door, Danny’s cell phone rang. He picked it up, saw who was calling.

“Talk to me.”

“It’s about Joe,” the voice said.





Four



JACK WOLF WAS ABOUT to join the afternoon editorial meeting at the San Francisco Tribune. He’d decided to hold it in the middle of the city room, a choice he made just often enough to make them think he loved being a newspaperman—and the paper—the way his father had.

All bullshit.

The room had gotten smaller since Joe Wolf had named his second son to succeed him as publisher. But what newspaper outside the New York Times or the Washington Post hadn’t gotten smaller? The Tribune’s print edition on some days looked less substantial than the wine list at Acquerello.

Jack didn’t mind that the paper remained a conservative voice in the otherwise liberal city that Joe Wolf liked to call Pelosi-ville. Problem was, Jack Wolf just didn’t think it was conservative enough. Or loud enough. Or angry enough. Or nearly down and dirty enough. When he and his father fought—and they fought a lot—it was mostly about that. His father kept saying that as long as he was alive, the paper was still going to have standards.