The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(5)

“Did he fall?” Gallo said. “Or was he pushed?”

Before I could answer, he was the one to walk away first, smiling at me one last time over his shoulder.

Shit, I thought.

The asshole had gotten the last word after all.





Six



JOHN GALLO SAT IN the back seat of his limousine as it pulled away from the VIP entrance to Wolves Stadium.

Usually he liked the kind of scrap he’d just had with Jenny Wolf. Lord knew he’d had enough of them with her father, going all the way back to the time when they’d had an agreement to go in on the Wolves together, until somehow Joe and his brother, the drunk, had found enough money to go it alone.

It really is true, Gallo thought. In the end you really do forget everything except the grudges.

But something bothered him about the girl. Teaching and coaching, even though she had a law degree from Stanford. How adorable. Even the other paper in town, the Chronicle, had done a big story on her a couple of weeks ago. Joe Wolf’s daughter, coaching Hunters Point High. They acted like it was going to end up being a TV movie.

People might start to think that I’m the asshole, she’d had the nerve to say to him.

The only person who’d ever talked to him that way and gotten away with it had just washed up on Crissy Field East Beach.

Gallo picked up the phone on the console next to him, punched in a number that by now he knew by heart. Made sure to push a button and raise the window between him and his driver. John Gallo hadn’t made it this far by being a careless man.

He could hear the noise of the party—he thought of it as a party, anyway—in the background behind him.

“Is your sister going to be a problem?” Gallo said.

He didn’t wait for an answer, just ended the call right there. They both knew it wasn’t a question, it was an order. Make sure she wasn’t a problem.

Gallo hadn’t gotten this close to the prize—for all of them—by not sensing trouble. Somehow he knew this girl was trouble. And might eventually have to be taught some manners.

There was something about her that bothered John Gallo. He didn’t just hear her father in her voice. It was also in her attitude. Something in her eyes, the way she looked at him with contempt.

The father’s daughter.

He picked up the phone again and called a man he knew didn’t like surprises of any kind.

“We need to put somebody on the daughter,” Gallo said.





Seven



DAD’S FUNERAL, WITH ALL the trimmings, had been the day before, at the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption. Now it was game day, the Wolves’ opener, against the Browns. I was using only one of the two season tickets on the forty yard line that I’d secretly bought after my last argument with my father, during which he told me for the last time what a disappointment I’d been to him.

I was happy sitting by myself, not having to listen to somebody who wanted to impress me with how much football he knew. I could focus on the game, take notes when I saw a play I thought might help my high school team, test myself to see how many plays I knew were coming just by the formation the Wolves were in.

Joe Wolf had always said that I was the best football man in the family.

Including himself.

By now we’d gone through all the phony pageantry of a death in sports, the moment of silence before the kickoff and the flags at half-staff and the video tribute at halftime. I was hoping that wherever my father was today he was laughing his Irish ass off at the spectacle of the whole stadium being practically overwrought, wanting the Wolves to win one for Joe today.

And we were winning in the fourth quarter. Our quarterback hadn’t been great today, hadn’t been great for a while. But Ted Skyler, that horse’s ass, had managed to throw a couple of touchdown passes, and when he did throw a bad interception, the way he just had, the defense covered for him and held the Browns to a field goal and kept us in the lead, 23–20.

All we needed to do when we got the ball back with two minutes to go was run out the clock, if we could.

Ted handed the ball off twice. Third and four now. The Browns called their last time-out. We needed just one first down.

This time I did know what was coming from our formation: Ted was going to throw a quick slant pass to DeLavarious Harmon, our star rookie receiver.

The kid ran a perfect pattern, Ted hit him in stride, DeLavarious was brought down immediately: first down, game as good as over.

DeLavarious popped right up, handed the ball to the ref, pointed in a showy way indicating that he had in fact made the first down, started walking back to the huddle.

I don’t know why my eyes were still on him. But they were. So I was looking directly at the kid, right there in front of me on the forty, when his left leg buckled underneath him, and he spun around as if suddenly dizzy, then fell face-forward to the turf.

And stopped moving.





Eight



THEY DIDN’T BRING OUT the kind of flatbed cart they used to transfer an injured player off the field, calling for an ambulance instead while players from both teams knelt and formed a circle around DeLavarious Harmon.

Who still hadn’t moved.

Wolves Stadium was as quiet as it had been during the pregame moment of silence for Joe Wolf. Our offense didn’t even line up for one more snap in what would have been the last minute. The refs waited until the ambulance had left the field, then the lead official went to midfield and waved his arms, indicating that the game was over.