The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(65)

He smiled. “I’m going to take that as a rhetorical question.”

We headed up Beverly Drive first, past Nate ’n Al’s, which had been my father’s favorite breakfast place whenever he came to Los Angeles. Clay asked if I wanted to stop in. I said I couldn’t eat right now if I tried.

“It might have been a little too late,” he said, “but I honestly think you might have changed a few minds in there.”

“Just not enough of them.”

“I don’t see how. But I gotta say, you got their attention with that letter from your dad.”

“Did I?”

“It sure blew me away.”

We stopped at the corner of Canon and Beverly. I took the envelope back out of my pocket, took out the piece of paper, handed it to Clay Rosen.

He looked at it, then at me, then said, “Well, I’ll be damned.” He wasn’t just looking at me now. He was staring.

“You trust me not to tell?”

“You want to have another drink sometime?”

“I do.”

“I know,” I said.

What I showed him was the letter from the general manager of the Beverly Wilshire, welcoming me to the hotel and telling me not to hesitate to call him if I needed anything during my stay.

“I told you whose daughter I am,” I said to Clay Rosen.





Seventy-Four



JOHN GALLO WAS BACK in his office in San Francisco in the late morning when Danny Wolf called him.

“Where are we?” Gallo said.

“Still five to seven votes short.”

“By whose count?”

“Mine,” Danny said, “and the commissioner’s.”

Gallo didn’t say anything right away. Never a good sign, Danny knew.

“Do not screw with me on this,” Gallo said. “I’ve waited a long time to put this thing in motion.”

If there’s life on Mars, Danny thought, they know how long you’ve waited to get what you want.

“I’m aware,” was all Danny said.

“What time is the vote tomorrow?” Gallo said.

“Ten o’clock.”

“Secret ballot?”

“Show of hands.”

“Then who will deliver the news to your sister?”

“The commissioner.”

Danny heard Gallo chuckle now.

“If only it could be me,” he said.





Seventy-Five



THE NEXT MORNING, I didn’t want to wait outside the Bordeaux Room. The owners had other business once they’d voted and might be in there awhile.

Clay Rosen had said he’d let me know how the vote had gone as soon as he could get outside and make a call.

“How long will it take?” I said.

“No way of knowing with these things,” he said. “Anybody who wants to say something before the vote is allowed to. The commish will probably weigh in, too. And A.J., because he runs the ownership committee, will probably ramble on awhile.”

“Are you going to say something on my behalf?”

“Bet your ass,” he said. “I got you on this.”

“Thank you.”

“You prepared for whatever’s going to happen?”

“I am.”

Then I said, “So the hard-liners are the ones who are going to do me in.”

“They’re so dug in it’s like they’re calcified.”

He asked where I’d be. I told him I was going to take another walk around Beverly Hills, maybe up to Santa Monica Boulevard and back. Or maybe all the way to Malibu and back. But I would try to return to my room before it was over.

He asked if I was taking my phone with me.

I said no.

He asked why.

“Not sure,” I said.

Bobby Erlich called then.

“It might be closer than we thought. But you just don’t have the votes, from what I heard last night.”

“Thanks for sharing.”

“But I’m already thinking, like, six moves ahead,” he said. “A book deal, definitely. Maybe a talk show. Maybe a reality series about you and the high school kids. Even if you lose, you win, because you’re going to be more famous than ever.”

“Just without my pro football team.”

“Who knows? Maybe you’ll be better off in the long run.”

I told him to take a long walk off the Santa Monica Pier and ended the call.

I walked up to Nate ’n Al’s, ordered a coffee to go, and sipped it as I started wandering aimlessly around Beverly Hills.

Maybe I never had a chance.

Maybe Bobby is right, and I will be better off.

But I knew that was a lie—a big fat lie—because I had found out something about myself by now: I was good at this. Damn good. I wanted this.

I didn’t know if there was anything I could have done differently with all the sharks circling me in the water—the water, I thought, where everything really started—but I couldn’t come up with a thing I could have done to change the outcome. Other than perhaps not punching my brother Jack’s lights out.

There was no appeals court for me after the decision I fully expected was coming. The vote would be final. The verdict would be final.