“THIS ISN’T EXACTLY OUR house in Pacific Heights,” Ted Skyler said.
“I’ve discovered I’m much happier here,” I said.
“Without me, you mean.”
I sipped some wine. I hadn’t offered him anything to drink.
“You sold me out to that cockroach Seth Dowd. And for a story that wasn’t even about you.”
“I am here to try to make that right.”
“Why? Because I’m your boss now and have the ability to trade you to Cincinnati?”
He gestured at the sofa. I shrugged and sat down across from him in one of the Perigold armchairs my mother, in a rare display of maternal instinct, had bought for me as a housewarming present.
“Because I feel shitty about what I did, and because I don’t like what your brothers are trying to do to you.”
“Theodore, I’ve got to hand it to you. No one fakes sincerity better than you do.”
I was almost certain that not even his parents still called him that.
“Is there any Scotch?” he said.
“No. Tell me about the sale. Who told you about it?”
“I honestly can’t say.”
“You’re not Seth Dowd,” I said. “You don’t have to protect your source.”
“In this case I do. You’ve got to trust me on that.”
“Trust you?”
“I know I deserve that. I’m just here to tell you that this shit was always about to get real once your dad was out of the way.”
“And Danny was going to sell us all out to the person my father hated the most?”
Ted nodded. “You always said that Danny was the one who hated Joe the most.”
“And what better way to get even?”
“But now his problem is that he needs control of the team back,” Ted said.
“Which he gets if I don’t get the votes at the league meetings.”
“It’s why he and Jack are coming at you this hard.”
“I don’t get what’s in it for Jack. The Wolves are completely separate from the newspaper.”
“The person who told me this also told me that Danny and Jack might have some bigger play going with Gallo,” Ted said.
“Bigger than Gallo getting the San Francisco football team he’s lusted after for his entire lousy life?”
Ted got up off the sofa, went into the kitchen, came back a minute later with a glass of Scotch.
“I knew you were lying.”
I sighed. “Learned from the master.”
“I’ve told you everything I know. But I admit there’s a lot I don’t know.”
“Tell me about it.”
He smiled. He used to describe it as his cover-boy smile back when people still read magazines.
“You know you love me.”
“I just wish like hell that I liked you.”
He had only poured himself a small drink. I’d seen his car out front when I’d let him in. He drained the last of the Scotch and gave a quick look at his Omega watch—Omega being one of his endorsements.
“I have to be somewhere.”
“I’ll bet.”
“But before I go,” he said, ignoring that one, “I have to ask you something, because I am on your side, whether you trust me or not.”
I don’t know who to trust anymore.
Ted said, “You see what they’re like. Why put yourself through this if you’re going to lose the team in the end? Why not quit now?”
“I don’t quit.”
“You quit on us.”
“No,” I said, “that was all you.”
He stood up. “For what it’s worth, you did a good thing with the coach.”
“I know.”
“Man, you’re tough.”
“I’ll get the votes,” I said.
“How do you figure?”
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”
When he was gone, I made a call that I’d hesitated to make before this.
“I’ve been expecting to hear from you,” he said, in a voice even more gravelly than I remembered. “You finally ready to fight?”