The first college scout showed up when William was fourteen.
"He's the best I've ever seen, Frank."
The last two years had been a blur. The case against Kobe in Colorado had been dismissed; the case against Enron in Houston had not. Kobe paid the desk clerk a reported $5 million to go away; the Enron chairman of the board and CEO were going away to prison. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned the obstruction of justice conviction of Arthur Anderson, Enron's accounting firm, but it was too late to save the company or its eighty-five thousand employees. Martha Stewart served prison time for insider trading; the speaker of the House of Representatives did not. George W. Bush won reelection, and then Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans and Bush's presidency. Tom Brady and the Patriots won their third Super Bowl. Major League Baseball instituted a steroid testing program after most of the record-breaking home run hitters of the nineties had been implicated in the performance-enhancing drug scandal. Lance Armstrong won his seventh straight Tour de France; at least there was one clean athlete in America. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan waged on. Something called Facebook was launched, as if thousands of people were really going to put their entire personal lives on display for the world. Frank tried more white-collar criminal cases and won them all. William played more private school football games and lost them all. It was a Thursday afternoon in late October, and his eighth-grade team was losing again. His father stood along the chain link fence that surrounded the Academy field. Sam Jenkins stood next to Frank and smelled of Old Spice and tobacco. Sam was short and stocky and smoked a cigar. He was a college scout.
"He's fourteen," Frank said.
"He's special."
"He's a kid."
"He's an athlete. With a big-time future. If you manage his career correctly."
"His career?"
"That's right. His career. A career that could be worth a couple hundred million dollars, Frank. Top pro athletes make more than movie stars today … and a hell of a lot more than lawyers."
"He's playing eighth-grade football."
"He's four years from playing college ball, eight from pro ball, maybe six if he leaves college early."
"He won't."
"Play pro ball?"
"Leave college early."
Sam nodded. "That's what they all say. But when an NFL team offers millions, a college degree doesn't seem so important."
"What are the odds of William playing pro ball?"
"What are the odds of winning the lottery? But someone always wins."
Sam exhaled cigar smoke that lingered in the air.
"Frank, if William was a music prodigy—a pianist—would you nurture that gift?"
"Sure."
"Well, he's a football prodigy."
"How many pianists suffer concussions and long-term brain damage?"
"How many make ten million a year? Frank, your boy's got a gift. I've been scouting kids for thirty years now, I've never seen a fourteen-year-old boy like him."
"You scout fourteen-year-old boys?"
"No. I scout twelve-year-old boys. Problem is, they're just hitting puberty, and half of the good ones come out of puberty no bigger than they went in. Normally I'd tell you to hold him back in school a year, maybe two, give him a chance to grow before varsity ball. But that's not an issue with William. He's already big—what is he, six foot?"
"Six-one."
"What's his shoe size?"
"Thirteen."
Sam whistled. "Size thirteen at age fourteen. He'll go to size sixteen, maybe seventeen. I figure he'll top out at six-four, maybe six-five. How big are his hands?"
"Bigger than mine."
"What does he weigh?"
"One-sixty."
"In eighth grade. He'll go two-twenty, and he won't need steroids to do it. Which is always a concern. You look at sixteen-, seventeen-, eighteen-year-old bulked-up boys, and you always wonder if they're using."
"High school boys are using steroids?"
Sam chuckled. "You're spending too much time in the courtroom, Frank. Hell, yes, high school boys are juiced. They get through puberty and realize they're not going to be big enough, decide to give their bodies a boost. Anything to live the dream. So I always check their hands and feet."
"Why?"
"I see a pumped-up boy weighing two-twenty but wearing size ten cleats, I know that doesn't add up. Too big for his feet. Same with their hands. Boys grow into their hands and feet, not vice-versa."
"You've got scouting down to a science."
"Size and strength is science, but heart and guts isn't. A boy's got to have the guts to compete and the heart to win. You can't coach that."
On the field, William ran left, juked two defenders, broke four tackles, and sprinted down the sideline for a touchdown. Sam regarded Frank's son with awe. He pointed the cigar at the field.
"You can't coach that either, Frank. A boy's either got it or he doesn't. Your boy's got it."
Sam sucked on the cigar and again exhaled smoke.
"When I got started in the scouting business, my mentor was an old-timer who scouted Namath in high school. Said watching him play was like having an orgasm. I never understood what he meant. Until now."
"An orgasm? You're scaring me, Sam."
Sam smiled then spit a bit of cigar.
"Gives me chills, watching your boy play." Sam ran his fingers over his forearm then held his arm out to Frank. "Here, feel the goose bumps."
"I'll pass."
"Last time I got even half this excited watching an eighth-grader was Troy Aikman up in Oklahoma. That boy could play. I ranked him number one coming out of high school. He did okay in football: went number one in the NFL draft, won three Super Bowls with the Cowboys, made the Hall of Fame, earned millions. But he wasn't as good as William at fourteen. Frank, if you don't nurture his gift, give him a chance to live his dream, he'll hate you."
"He'll hate me?"
Frank smiled. He assumed Sam was joking. He wasn't.
"He will."
Frank couldn't imagine his son hating him.
"So what's your advice, Sam?"
"First, he's in a small private school. He's got no team around him to work with." Sam gestured at the field. "He can't develop with a bunch of losers."
"Losers? They're nice boys."
"They're lousy athletes. He's got no offensive line, no receivers who can catch. He only throws the ball ten times a game. He can't develop his quarterbacking skills playing an old-style offense that runs the ball. The forward pass is the game today, Frank. The pro game is all about passing, which means the college game is all about passing, which means the high school game is all about passing. That's why freshmen can start and excel in college, why they can go pro and start in the NFL. They've been running pro offenses since middle school. You need to put William in a big public school that runs a pro-style offense, throws fifty times a game, and has players around him, preferably black players with speed and skills. And an indoor practice field."
"An indoor practice field?"
"It rains in Houston, Frank. Rain days are lost practice days. So all the big public schools in Texas build indoor practice fields."
"I thought our public school system was broke?"
"There's always money for football. When they played the Super Bowl in Dallas, the teams practiced in indoor arenas at high schools."
"But he loves his school."
"Frank, families move across the country so their sons can play at the best public high schools running the best pro offenses."
"You're kidding?"
"Do I look like I'm kidding?"
He did not.
"He's got to get on track now—if you want him to play in the NFL."
"I don't care."
"He cares."
"He's fourteen. Every fourteen-year-old boy dreams of being a star pro football player."
"Difference is, Frank, his dream can come true. He can be a star. He's got it. The size, the strength, the speed. Bigger stronger faster."
He said the three words as if they were one.
"I read about you, Frank, that profile in the New York Times after you won the senator's case—"
Frank Tucker had become famous. The senator's acquittal had propelled him to the top of the heap of criminal defense lawyers in America. He could have specialized in defending members of Congress accused of ethics and criminal violations, but he didn't want to spend so much time in Washington away from his family. And there were plenty of white-collar defendants in Texas. Why travel?
"—how you've never lost a trial. Why do you win all your cases?"
"Because justice is on my side."
Sam snorted. "Yeah, right. You win because you're smarter. In a court of law, smarter beats dumber every time, right? That's the law of man. On a football field, bigger stronger faster beats smaller weaker slower every time. That's the law of nature."
Frank gazed out at his son's smaller, weaker, and slower team losing to a bigger, stronger, and faster team.
"Second, he needs to spend his summers in quarterback school."
"What's that?"
"Summer camps run by former pro quarterbacks and coaches. They work with the top prospects in the nation. Throwing motion, footwork, leadership skills, passing drills, reading defenses, recognizing coverage, calling audibles … They teach the boys how to play the position. He does that for a couple of summers, then goes to an Elite Eleven camp."
"What's that?"
"Quarterback camp for the best of the best. They hold them all over the country, invite fifty or sixty boys to each camp. Maybe one boy from each camp moves on to the five-day Elite Eleven finals up at Nike's headquarters. They call it 'The Opening.' "
"How much does all that cost?"
"Thousands. Tens of thousands."
"That's a lot of money."
"They end up signing for millions."
"What else?"
"You need to put him on a training program with a personal trainer. Chisel his body. Quarterbacks today, they're ripped. You ever see players at the combine meat market, standing up on stage in their skivvies so the owners and coaches can take a look?"
"Uh, no. I haven't. And I don't want to."
Sam chuckled. "It is a bit strange, white team owners and coaches eyeballing these big black studs same way white plantation owners used to eyeball black slaves being sold on the docks in Galveston—I saw a show on cable about that, struck me—but difference is, these black players are going to make millions not pick cotton. Anyway, I can give you some names of trainers here in Houston. And a speed trainer, like Michael Johnson up in Dallas. Olympic gold medal guy, he trains NFL prospects and players to get that extra step for the combine. From four-five in the forty to four-four. One step faster can be the difference between playing in the NFL or working at Wal-Mart."
"How much will that cost?"
"Nothing a famous lawyer can't afford."
"What else?"
"A nutritionist. Boys eat fast food, they build fat instead of muscle. He needs to be on a strict diet."
"At fourteen?"
"He should've been on it at twelve."
"Public school, quarterback school, personal trainer—"
"And seven-on-seven tournaments."
"Which are?"
"Passing tournaments. A QB plus six receivers against seven D-backs. They run them all summer."
"What about family vacations?"
"You vacation at the tournament locations." Sam inhaled on the cigar and exhaled. "Look, Frank, if you want William in the NFL, that journey starts now. His family's got to get on board, dedicate their lives to that one goal."
"Why?"
"Because every other William Tucker out there, his family is. That's what it takes today."
"Are there any other William Tuckers out there?"
"No. But their parents think they are."
"Why do they do it?"
"Fame and fortune. There are thirty-two NFL teams. Thirty-two starting quarterbacks. Average salary is five million. By the time William is drafted number one, he'll get twenty million. A year. Guaranteed."
"But he needs to get a good education, maybe at an Ivy League school, then—"
Sam laughed. "Ivy League? Shit, Frank, most high school teams in Texas can beat the hell out of Harvard's football team. Forget the Ivy League, Frank. William's got to go to a big D-One school."
"—medical or law school."
"And be a lawyer like his daddy?"
"Maybe."
"When do you figure on retiring, Frank? Sixty-five?"
"Depends on how much my wife can spend between now and then."
"NFL quarterbacks retire at thirty-five. You watch the Olympics?"
Frank nodded.
"You see those little gymnasts? They're sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, been living in dorms since they were ten, so they can be near their coaches, train every day for their one shot at glory. One shot at fame and fortune. One shot at a life. Sports today, it's younger than ever. You've got ten years max to make it. You're in the game at twenty-two, out at thirty-two. If you're lucky and don't get a career-ending injury. But if you play it right, you're sitting on a pile of money. You're set for life."
"So it's about money?"
"It's about William doing what he was born to do. Play football."
Frank watched his son play football. Was that what William Tucker was born to do?
"You ever been wrong, Sam? About a boy?"
"Sure. There was a boy named Montana. Skinny, slow, couldn't throw a football fifty yards. You wouldn't pick him for your high school team. But he had ice water running through his veins. He won a national championship at Notre Dame and four Super Bowls."
"I mean, on the downside. A boy you knew would make it, but didn't."
Sam nodded. "Many times. You can never be sure what's inside a boy. The heart and guts thing. Whether they'll thrive on pressure or fall apart. And there's always the injury factor. One injury and a promising career can be over."
"What if you're wrong about William? You want him to give up a great education at the Academy and the Ivy League for football? What if he doesn't make it?"
"Plan B."
"Which is?"
"His rich daddy. He can go back to college, maybe law school. No worries for William. It's the black kids, the ones without a Plan B, they're the ones I lose sleep over. Football's their only way out of the 'hood, it's all or nothing. A lot of them end up with nothing." Sam stared at the field. "But I'm not wrong about William."
"So I'm supposed to make a major life decision for my son based upon your appraisal?"
Sam held his hands up as if in surrender.
"Hey, you're his dad. I'm just a scout."
Sam chuckled then took a long drag on the cigar and blew out smoke.
"Frank, when you were a kid, did you dream of being a pro athlete? You sure as hell didn't dream of being a lawyer."
Frank nodded. "Golfer."
"Did you love the game?"
"I did."
"Were you any good?"
"Not good enough."
"What if you had been? And not just good, but great. How would that have felt? Would you have chased your dream? Would you have been mad if your dad had denied you that chance?"
Sam Jenkins answered his own question.
"You would've hated him. And William will hate you."
Sam waved the cigar at the teams on the field.
"That's his dream, right out there. You gonna take that dream away from your son, Frank?"
A good father wouldn't take his son's dream away, would he?
William's team was losing. Again. He had scored five touchdowns, but the other team had scored nine. His team ran off the field. The linemen bowled over Ray and knocked him to the ground. All the water bottles he carried in his little carry rack went flying. Ray was now the team manager, aka, the water boy. William stopped and helped his friend up. He then picked up the plastic Gatorade bottles and replaced them in Ray's carry rack. It looked like an old-time milkman's carry rack, except Ray carried bottles of Gatorade not milk.
"You okay, Ray?"
"Yeah. Thanks, William." He nodded at the other players. "They've got no respect for water boys."
William stuck a fist out. "Knucks."
As in "knuckles." They fist-bumped.
Sam Jenkins had left, and Frank stood at the fence pondering the scout's advice when his cell phone rang. He checked the readout. It was an Austin number. He answered.
"Frank Tucker."
"Frank. Scooter and Billy."
Scooter McKnight was the athletic director at UT. Billy Hayes was the head basketball coach. They were on a speakerphone. Frank had a feeling they weren't calling to offer game tickets.
"Can we talk?" Scooter said.
"Shoot."
"Not on the phone. Can you come to Austin? Tomorrow?"
"Can't."
"Saturday?"
"Scooter, I told my son we'd play golf—"
"It's important, Frank."
Scooter was not given to drama. So Frank and William would play Sunday instead.
"All right. At your office in the stadium?"
"At the jail."
"The jail?"
Scooter sighed into the phone. "Watch the news."
Frank disconnected and wondered what the meeting would be about. More specifically, whom it would be about. Frank had handled some high-profile matters for the athletic department, which is to say, he had represented athletes who had found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Most were just young and stupid and bulletproof, or so they had thought. They were living in those gap years, with bodies like men and brains like boys. Testosterone and stupidity had apparently joined up to produce another bad result. He knew Saturday's meeting would not be a happy affair. Happy people don't call criminal defense attorneys.
"We've got the society luncheon tomorrow."
His wife's perfume announced her presence. He turned to her. She was forty-two now, but daily workouts and regular spa treatments had deferred her aging. She was still lean and fit; climbing the social ladder in Houston required stamina.
"What time?"
"Noon."
"I can't."
"You promised."
"Nancy's son is coming home from Iraq."
"So?"
"In a casket."
Her son had died at twenty-two, only eight years older than William. Where would Frank's son be at twenty-two? Not dying from a roadside bomb in a foreign land to help people who hated Americans. Would he be playing pro football for Americans who loved the game more than life itself? Was his son's dream in Frank's hands? Was Sam the scout right? What would a good father do?
"Who was that you were talking to?" his wife said.
"On the phone?"
"No. That man."
"College scout."
"Why?"
"He came to see William play. Scouting a fourteen-year-old boy."
"So what did he say?"
Frank recounted his conversation with Sam Jenkins to his wife.
"He really thinks William could be a star in the NFL?" she said.
"Apparently."
"Then we've got to do it."
"Hold on, Liz. We need to think this out, the consequences for William. Not just what he wants, but what he needs. What's best for him. He's as big as a man, but he's still just a kid without a clue."
"What's a vagina look like?"
Frank spit out the beef from his beef taco. Becky covered her face.
"Oh—my—God! William, that is so disgusting. And at the dinner table."
Liz had gone into the kitchen to check on Lupe. They were not sitting at the table in the kitchen in the old house. They were sitting at the formal dining table in the formal dining room in the new eight-thousand-square-foot house. They had sold the old house and moved into this house a year ago. It was new and austere and filled with marble, like a mausoleum. It did not feel like home to Frank. Or to the kids. Or to Rusty, one holdover from the old house. This new house had cost four and a half million dollars. Frank was carrying a two-million-dollar mortgage. All to keep the peace. To be with the kids. Becky, who was sixteen now and had only two more years at home, and William, whose size made him seem older when in fact he was just a fourteen-year-old boy working his way through puberty. Sometime in the last year, girls had become interesting.
"It's my one question," William said.
About a year before William had figured out that there was a secret world called sex, so he began peppering Frank with questions. A lot of anatomical and mechanical inquiries. Five, ten a day. Frank felt as if he were being deposed. So he reminded his son of the rule—if he asked a question, Frank would tell him the truth; but he had to be sure he wanted to know the truth—and then limited his sex questions to one per day. He couldn't deal with that much sex talk each day, particularly given that he was no longer a practitioner. But the preferred place for the daily question was not the dinner table.
"So how did this particular topic come up?"
"Some of the guys were talking about it at practice. Timmy McDougal said he had seen a picture online. Then his mother blocked porn sites on his computer. Petey Perkins said he had seen his sister's, but that made us all want to throw up."
Lupe came in with a platter of Mexican food. She was the other holdover. The house was new and the furnishings were new, but their maid was two years older. She did not wear a colorful peasant dress but instead all black, like a waiter at a fine restaurant. Liz had decided that Lupe needed to upgrade to a uniform when they moved into the new house.
"So why do you want to know?" Frank asked.
"I'm the only fourteen-year-old kid who's never seen one, not even a picture. I should know that sort of thing."
"Can we talk about something else?" Becky said.
"Why?"
"Because this is gross."
"My question was directed to William."
"All the other guys do. I feel stupid."
Frank tried to recall when he had first seen a vagina. It was in a Playboy magazine another boy had smuggled into school like contraband. He was in ninth grade and never looked at girls the same way again. Answering his son's sex questions had fallen to Frank, father-son and all. Telling him there was no Santa Claus was easier. That talk had also fallen to Frank.
"All right. After dinner. We'll find a vagina on the Internet."
Becky stared at Frank with her mouth gaped. Frank turned his hands up.
"What?"
"If I had asked to see a penis when I was fourteen, would you have shown me a picture on the Internet?"
"No."
"Exactly."
"And have you seen one?"
She pointed at her brother. "His … but not recently."
There was more for her to tell, but Frank could not summon up the courage to ask. She answered anyway.
"Don't worry, Daddy. I'm still a virgin. I'm not going to let a guy use me to make his high school memories. I'm smarter than that."
Frank leaned over and kissed her forehead.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For being a better daughter than I am a dad."
"You're welcome."
Everyone said the first child would be easy. Not so much the second.
"Can I ask a follow-up question?" William said.
"No."
He did anyway.
"Jimmy said girls put IUDs up their vaginas so they don't get pregnant. But I told him that would be dangerous because your secretary's son died from an IUD in Iraq. Jimmy's dumb, isn't he?"
"He is," Becky said.
"But not about that," Frank said. "Nancy's son died from an IED, an improvised explosive device. An IUD is an intrauterine device. A form of birth control women use."
"Do they hurt?"
"Women? Yes."
Frank smiled at Becky.
"Funny," his daughter said.
"What's for dessert?" his son said.
William's cell phone buzzed. Incoming text. He checked it then jumped out of his chair and ran into the kitchen to the nearest TV. He clicked it on and found the local news. Mom stood next to him. She was mad because Dad wasn't going to some lunch with her the next day.
"Dad!"
Dad and Becky walked in a few seconds later. William pointed at the screen. The reporter was talking: "Bradley Todd, the star UT basketball player, was arrested today in Austin and charged with the brutal rape and murder of a UT coed. He's being held without bail in the Travis County Jail. The D.A. is going to seek the death penalty."
"So that's it," Dad said.
"What?"
"The AD and coach called me today at your game. We're meeting Saturday morning. About this."
"I thought we were playing golf Saturday?"
"Sunday."
"Is he the son of the Todds of Highland Park?" Liz asked. "The billionaire?"
"I don't know."
She did.
"They're high in Dallas society."
"His dad'll buy his way out," William said. "Just like Kobe bought his way out."
"Kobe wasn't accused of murder."
"You're not seriously going to be his lawyer?" Becky said.
"Depends."
"Daddy, you can't represent a rapist and a murderer!"
"I'm not going to. I'm going to meet him, see if he's being wrongfully accused, if he's innocent."
"And if he's not? Innocent?"
"He'll have to find another lawyer."