The Big Time

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

TROY HUNG HIS HEAD.

He felt suddenly like a party balloon with a hole in its stem, the air hissing out in a steady stream.

"Okay," he said.

His mom nodded and marched for the gate leading out of the stadium.

"Where you going?" Troy asked.

"Business," she said without looking back. "You can get a ride home with Seth. I'll see you back at the house."

Troy started to protest, but she was moving fast, with her jaw set and her eyes squinted. He watched her go, then tugged his helmet on and slogged back out onto the field to take his place behind the offense, rejoining the other nonstarters.

"You get sick or something?" Seth asked, barking loud enough so everyone could hear and giving him an excuse so the whole team could put the incident behind them.

"Yes," Troy said.

"Better now?" Seth asked gruffly.

"Yes," Troy said.

Seth blasted his whistle, and the practice resumed.

When Troy finally got to run some plays, he did his best. He wasn't going to look like a big baby. If he had to stay, he'd stay and make the most of it. His finger didn't bother him much. If anything, the discomfort made him concentrate more on his form so that his passes zipped like bullets, clearly out-throwing Glenn Twitchen.

When practice ended, Troy stayed silent. He sat in the backseat of the H2, letting Nathan holler "Shotgun" and scramble into the front without a word of protest. Not even Tate could pull him free from his cloud of anger and frustration. Seth proved to be just as stubborn. He said nothing about the reason for Troy being second-string and kept equally silent on the drive home. At one point as they surged up Route 85, Tate put a hand on Troy's knee, squeezing it through the padding in his pants and offering a sympathetic smile. Still, Troy kept quiet except for the thanks he mumbled to Seth as he hopped down in front of his own house.

Tate, tireless to the end, said, "See you tomorrow, Troy."

Troy nodded and closed the door. Without looking back, he turned and ran his hand along the smooth curve of his mom's VW, then climbed the stairs. He left his helmet and shoulder pads on the porch to dry out and went inside. His mom sat reading in her corner of the living room.

She looked up from her book and said, "Hello."

"Hi," Troy said, his voice low.

"Sulking won't make this any better," she said.

"I'm not," Troy said, even though he knew he was.

"Whatever," she said, dropping her nose back into her book.

Troy stood there for a moment in his sweaty practice pants and sleeveless Under Armour T-shirt before he sighed heavily and asked, "So, did you talk to him?"

"Who?" she said without looking up. "Drew?"

"My father," he said, delighted at the way her lip curled up at the word.

"No," she said, "I didn't need to."

"I thought you said you had business," he said.

"I do. I did," she said. "It's all set."

"But you're not going to tell me," Troy said, stepping into the living room with his hands on his hips and glaring at her.

"I can tell you," she said, looking up, with her voice as cheerful as the false smile on her face. "It's no big deal. I went and talked with Bob McDonough."

"Bob McDonough?" Troy said. "What's he got to do with any of this?"

Troy knew that Bob McDonough was the head of security for Mr. Langan. A former Secret Service agent who used to guard the president, Bob McDonough would sometimes help out with legal issues involving the team's players.

"He knows people," Troy's mom said, returning her attention to the book.

"What people?" Troy asked. "What are you talking about, Mom?"

His mom sighed and stood up, closing her book and slapping it gently against her leg. "I'm talking about people in the FBI, Troy. Law enforcement people who can look into someone's background."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, his stomach clenched.

"You see patterns on the football field," she said, "variables that your mind can put together like the pieces of a puzzle so that you know what's going to happen. Well, I see things, too. I know things-not about football, but about people. I see Drew and his fast car and this G Money character. I see the private jet, and I hear the smooth talk of someone who knows just what to say, how to push all the right buttons and get me to go along with his master plan, whatever that is. I see all this, and I have a sense of what's going to happen.

"You don't have to look at me like that. I'm not asking you to believe me because of what I'm sensing. That's okay. And I don't have to ask myself anymore either, what and why and who, or wonder if I'm right or wrong. Bob McDonough's friends at the FBI are going to find out."

"Find out what?" Troy asked, his voice raising in annoyance.

"What Drew is really up to," she said. "They have ways of looking into things that other people don't, ways of finding things out."

An alarm sounded in the back of Troy's mind.

"That's garbage!" he shouted. "You and Seth just want me to stay here so you can keep your jobs! You don't care about me, what I want! This is my chance at the big time. You can't just go get the FBI to start digging for dirt on my father. You can't!"

His mother patted his arm on her way past. She seemed unfazed by his rant. Heading to her bedroom, she said, "Oh, I already did."