The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(20)

Kopka leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head and said, “Let’s just say I’m tired of him doing to the Wolves what he used to do to you.”

I knew he was trying to get a rise out of me. But I let it go. At least Joe Wolf had raised us to never punch down. My father hadn’t given us a lot of positive life lessons. But that was one of them.

“The only person who thought that kid was worth drafting was you.”

“I’m gonna make a pro quarterback out of him,” Kopka said. “It’s just gonna take a little time.”

“You could take until the end of time and not make an NFL quarterback out of him.”

“If you came down here to second-guess decisions I make about my team, you best get out of my office now, lady.”

My team.

They all think it’s theirs.

“Ted gives us the best chance to win this season,” I said.

“Your father didn’t tell me who to play. So I’m certainly not going to let you do that.”

“Who do you plan to start at quarterback next week?”

“Not that it’s any of your goddamn business,” he said, “but I’m gonna announce on Wednesday that I’m going with the kid.”

“No, you’re not.”

He smiled, calmly took off his reading glasses, folded them and placed them on his desk.

Then he stood up, as if the simple act of doing that would terrify me.

“This meeting is over.”

“Sit down.”

“Excuse me?”

“This meeting is over when I say it’s over,” I said, my eyes locked on his. The girl who’d grown up with three brothers and never taken any shit from any of them. “Now sit your ass down.”

He glared at me for a moment longer. But sat his ass back down.

“Have it your way, leastways as long as you get to have your way around here.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Kopka smiled. “Not what I’m hearing.”

“Just so we’re clear,” I said. “It is your intention to bench Ted and start that kid, is that right?”

“We’re not making the playoffs with your boyfriend under center.”

“So that’s it. You’re writing the season off.”

“I’m writing the season off because our aging quarterback already looks older than the Golden Gate Bridge. Good a time to turn the page as any,” he said.

“Well, you’re right. About turning the page, I mean.”

“Finally.”

“You’re fired,” I said.

“What did you say?”

“You heard me.”

He jumped out of his chair again, knocking it backward into the wall behind him, face as red as it got during cold-weather games in the East near the end of the season, when he looked like somebody had stuck a Wolves cap on a tomato.

“Fire me?” he shouted. “You can’t fire me. Your father told me I have a lifetime contract.”

“His lifetime. Not yours.”





Twenty-One



I WAS SITTING WITH the Wolves’ former offensive coordinator, Ryan Morrissey, in my living room much later that night.

He had been the hottest assistant in the league until he had dropped Rich Kopka with that one punch the day after the Wolves had lost their last playoff game. Kopka had blamed the loss on Morrissey’s play calling even as the team’s defense was in the process of blowing a 28–3 halftime lead.

The league had suspended Ryan for two years. When the suspension was lifted, nobody would touch him.

“You’re really offering me the job,” he said.

“I am. My father should have kept you and gotten rid of him. That loss to the Packers was his fault, not yours.”

“No kidding.”

He grinned. We were drinking beer out of bottles. Ryan Morrissey was younger than Ted Skyler and better-looking, not that I was ever going to mention that to him. I probably shouldn’t have been thinking it. He had never been good enough to make it as a starting quarterback in the league himself, despite getting drafted out of Texas Tech by the Rams and being a backup for five years before going into coaching.

“How did old Dick take it, by the way?”

After his firing, Ryan had always referred to Rich Kopka as Dick. Combine that with the punch heard round the football world, and he might have been my favorite coach ever. One I was about to hire.

“He took it badly. The general manager took it even worse. So I fired him, too.”

“Seriously?”

“He had it coming, too.”

Then I listed all the bad decisions Mike Sawchuck had made over the last few years, involving trades and free agency and draft choices, one by one.

“Just off the top of my head.”

He was smiling at me with his eyes. “Right. Couple of dozen names. Just off the top of your head. You have the dates, too?”

“I like football,” I said.

“I can tell. Who’s going to be the new general manager?”

“My brother Thomas. And the team will be a lot better off, frankly.”

“How’s Danny going to respond to all these bombs you’re dropping?”