The Mayan Resurrection

22

Saturday Night

The Mabus Plaza Hotel and Casino is an L-shaped monstrosity of tinted black glass and bloodred neon lighting, occupying five full beach blocks along scenic Ocean Drive. The top six floors of the thirty-three-floor dwelling are all lavish apartment suites leased year-round to film stars, politicians, bankers, and foreign dignitaries. For those who can afford the five million-dollar price tag, there is a seven-year waiting list for availability. For those who can’t, reservations for hotel rooms on levels seven through twenty-seven must be made eighteen months in advance and require a nonrefundable five-thousand-dollar deposit. Still out of your league? You can always rent a room by the hour. Two hundred one-bedroom studios are located on floors four through six and are available twenty-four hours a day for clients of the Mabus Bordello, a state-licensed brothel that occupies most of level five. Businessmen specials run 11:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. daily. ‘Blue-ball Mondays are 10 percent off, Two is for Tuesdays (menage a trois), Wednesday’s are ‘hump-days,’ with ‘Fantasy Thursdays’ rounding out the weekdays (Friday through Sunday reserved for platinum-condom members only).

The first three floors of the Mabus Complex are dedicated strictly to gambling. Levels One and Two are where the general public goes to lose its money. Level Three is more private, strictly reserved for the high rollers and VIPs-by invitation only.

None of the bright lights and sparkles of the old Las Vegas-style casino can be found in this ‘Hideaway of the Rich and Decadent.’ Light is out, darkness in. The walls and floors of Level Three are decorated in crimson silks and ebony velvets, the ceiling in smoky mirrors. Half of the two hundred craps and blackjack tables are set up as islands inside giant hot tubs. High-priced ‘pink ladies of the evening’ wearing high-heeled pumps (and little else) sell drinks, drugs, and ultimately themselves, for each of these carnation-dyed beauties can be ‘rented’ by the hour or trick (whatever ‘cums’ first). Baccarat players at hundred-thousand-dollar-minimum tables often receive sexual favors while they gamble, their naked genitals pleasured beneath the tables’ overhanging satin aprons.

Welcome to the Mabus Plaza Hotel and Casino-a den of iniquity raking in an estimated million dollars every hour-the favorite jewel of Lucien Mabus’s thriving financial empire.

For newlyweds Danny Diaz and his bride, Sia, it has become their own private hell.

The young couple from Cocoa Beach had pushed the date of their wedding back eight months just so they could ‘Honeymoon at the Mabus.’ On their very first day, ‘Lady Luck’ had greeted them in the guise of an afternoon thundershower, forcing them to abandon ‘Emperor Nero’s Decadence at the Beach’ for a day at the casino. Changing into satin robes (provided free by the hotel) they had spent the next seven-plus hours on an amazing run at the roulette table. Sia had won over $30,000, Danny pocketing another $21,400. Delirious with joy, they returned to their room for a quick interlude of sandwiches and sex, hurrying back to the casino with visions of a down payment on a four-bedroom dream home on the coast dancing in their intoxicated heads.

But Lady Luck can be a nasty mistress, and by Saturday morning, the newlyweds had squandered all their winnings, plus another $7,200 in vacation money, a $12,000 advance on Danny’s credit card, and the $10,000 in credit Sia’s mother had given her daughter as a wedding gift. Worse, Danny had done the unthinkable, tapping into his department’s expense account to the tune of $7,300.

Their only consolation-they had received an engraved invitation from the hotel manager to visit Level Three on this, their final evening at the Mabus.

Danny clutches Sia’s sweaty palm, guiding her to an open spot at a roulette table, the fifty-six-hundred-dollar credit from her pawned engagement ring burning in his right pants pocket. Steam rises from a nearby hot tub, where an obese middle-aged man is playing poker, the fat on his back flushed pink beneath a mat of thick black hair. Danny pauses, watching enviously as the man bets a stack of ten-thousand-dollar chips.

‘Damn… uh, okay, honey, what do you think? Roulette or craps?’

Sia glances around the room, gazing at the half-naked celebrities and guests who are circling the tables like vultures. She is perspiring profusely, despite the heavy air-conditioning. ‘Look, isn’t that Tonja Davidson, the soap opera star? Look at those tits. God, she makes me sick.’

‘Honey, please, roulette or craps? I have to get those funds back into the department’s account before seven.’

‘Okay… okay… I say roulette.’ She leads him to the nearest table.

‘Chips, please.’ Danny tosses the attendant the credit, his gaze momentarily lost in her size 38-DD breasts. He squeezes Sia’s hand. ‘Red?’

She nods. ‘And lucky number 23. Let’s get it all back on the first roll.’

‘Right. Okay, quick, give me a kiss for luck.’

Their lips meet, their tongues spreading saliva and vodka as the wheel is spun.

Two floors up, Benjamin Merchant, personal assistant to the casino’s president and CEO, sucks deeply on a pacifier bong as he watches the scene play out on his wrist monitor. Merchant’s piggish eyes, squirrel gray, remain half-closed behind rose-colored designer spectacles. A thin line of spittle drools from the pacifier and down his lower lip onto the ruffles of his ivory white embroidered dress shirt.

Ben Merchant has never met Danny and Sylvia Diaz, but he knows the couple well. Over the last three days he has been both their good luck charm and dark cloud. Seducing them with each roll of the roulette wheel, he has baited them with lingering tastes of success while encouraging them to reach deeper into their depleted savings. He has played the banker, personally signing off on their arrangements at the hotel’s pawn shop. He has played the ‘chef,’ lacing their meals with a potent form of Ecstasy.

Now he plays his favorite role of all-the Devil’s advocate-as he guides them deeper into bankruptcy.

In Merchant’s manicured hand is a small remote device linked to the casino’s roulette wheels. He dials up the table number, presses a button, then sucks in another hit from his bong.

‘Six black.’

Sia’s forehead collides with her husband’s shoulder. ‘ Fubishit! Where’s my goddam drink? Can we get something to drink here?’

A nubile waitress with salmon skin approaches, her gold nipple rings glittering beneath an overhead light. In drug-induced English, dripping with a Jersey accent, she manages, ‘Caligula wit’ a twist, right honey?’

Sia downs the cream-colored liquid, barely registering the flame in the pit of her empty stomach. Sylvia Cabella-Diaz has not eaten or slept in thirty-one hours.

‘Sia?’

‘Red again, Danny. Everything we’ve got.’

‘You sure?’

‘Just do it.’

Danny pushes the pile of chips across the emerald green felt.

Two floors up, Ben Merchant fingers the BLACK key again on his palm-sized remote.

Sia’s heart pounds like a timpani drum. She watches the steel ball jump across the wheel’s plastic spokes, slowing on the red, stopping on ‘Nineteen, black.’

‘ Fubishole! ’ The twenty-six year-old’s forehead strikes the padded cushion in front of her.

Danny slides off the chair, the room spinning in his head as if he’s on a merry-go-round. ‘Oh, God, Sia, what are we gonna do? I’m dead. I’ll lose my job for sure. I could go into exile-’

Across the table, a pit boss listens intently as Ben Merchant’s commands are whispered through his ear piece.

‘I hate this place, Danny. I told you Friday we should have checked out.’

‘Excuse me? You’re the one who-’

‘Mr. and Mrs. Diaz?’

Sia looks up at the pit boss through bloodshot eyes. ‘What the hell do you want? Haven’t you vampires sucked enough of our blood for one night?’

‘My manager would like a word with the two of you. In private.’

‘What for?’

‘I believe it concerns your room charges. If you’ll follow me please.’

Danny shoots his wife a worried look. She shrugs, too weak to protest. ‘What can they do?’

They follow the pit boss across the casino floor to a private door hidden among the satin vermilion drapes.

The hydraulic door hisses open. ‘Up the stairs, please.’

‘What’s up the stairs?’

‘My manager. Now please, ma’am-’

A brass spiral staircase beckons. Sia goes first, her husband right behind her, the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Ben Merchant is waiting for them atop the landing, a Cheshire cat smile splitting his pasty complexion. ‘Well, good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Diaz.’ The heavy Louisiana drawl is as cheery as it is false.

‘About the room charges… can you just bill us? I promise we’ll-’

‘Tut-tut… all room charges have already been taken care of.’

Sia looks at Danny, then back at Merchant.

‘The two of you are lucky, very lucky indeed. It seems someone up there likes you.’ Merchant points a manicured finger toward the ceiling. ‘A guardian angel.’

‘I don’t understand,’ says Sia. ‘Who are you?’

‘The name’s Merchant, Benjamin Merchant, but you, dear Sylvia, may call me Ben. I have been and remain the private secretary and personal confidant of Mrs. Lucien Mabus, but for tonight, I’ll be your exclusive escort as you venture upward to Paradise Lost.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Paradise Lost, darlin’. A wondrous place just north of heaven. Come, dear cherubs, your chariot awaits.’ Merchant leads them down a short hall to a private glass elevator. ‘This lift will take you straight to the penthouse. Mrs. Mabus’ll be waiting for you there.’

‘Mrs. Mabus wants to see us?’

‘Nothing to fear, Danny Boy. Like I said, this is your lucky day. All your financial woes are about to disappear.’

Danny looks at Sia, then back to Merchant, who is holding the elevator door open, beckoning them in. The couple enters.

‘Bon voyage.’ The doors close on Merchant’s smile, sealing them in darkness.

‘Danny?’ Sia grabs his arm as the lift races skyward.

The elevator stops before they can exhale. The doors part.

Sparkling before them-the Miami skyline-a tapestry of mirrored skyscrapers blazing in rainbows of neon beneath a clear autumn night. Mesmerized, they step out onto the polished onyx-marble floor.

The elevator door hisses closed behind them.

‘Hello?’ Uncertain, they leave the alcove and enter a living room, the plush carpet the color of sable, the leather furniture and wraparound bar done in various shades of red. Immense bay windows wrap around 360 degrees.

‘I’m Lilith.’

Danny turns to see a woman pouring drinks behind the bar. The vixen’s skin is chocolate, her hair the color of pitch, long and wavy, trailing down her back. ‘Lucien wishes he could be here to greet you, but he’s been sick lately, poor dear.’

Danny’s eyes widen as she walks around the bar, handing them each a glass. Lilith is wearing a see-through negligee, her dark breasts and shaved crotch pressing against the sheer fabric. She motions them to a couch. ‘So the two of you are newlyweds?’

‘Uh, yes. Just married three days ago.’

‘Four.’ Sia shoots him an elbow, disrupting his gaze. ‘How long have you and Mr. Mabus been married?’

‘Just long enough to want him dead.’ A high, piercing cackle as she turns her sociopathic gaze toward Sia. ‘Thank Satan for vibrators, eh girl.’

Danny focuses his attention on Lilith’s exposed brown nipple, drooling like an intoxicated mouse eyeing the cheese.

‘It’s late,’ Sia stutters, feeling out of her element.

‘The night is young,’ Lilith purrs, ‘but you’re worried about something.’

‘We lost a lot of money. Danny borrowed from his expense account.’

‘Sia!’

‘Now, now, we’re all family here at the Mabus. Tell me, Daniel, how much did you lose tonight in our little lion’s den of inequity?’

Danny breaks eye contact. ‘I don’t know. Everything we had left.’

‘Sia’s ring, too?’

Danny nods, his emotions welling.

‘And all of your savings?’ Lilith Mabus-so endearing-like a priest at confession.

‘The credit card. Our wedding gifts.’ Danny pinches tears from his sleep-deprived eyes.

Sia eyes shoot daggers at Lilith as the vixen circles the coffee table to sit next to her husband.

‘Daniel, scoot closer and place your hand on the coffee table’s access pad.’

He complies, the woman’s scent filling his nostrils, wondering what he’d do if Sia wasn’t in the room.

‘Computer, access the financial statement of Mr. Daniel Diaz.’

A holographic account ledger appears above the pewter coffee table. Danny’s eyes widen in disbelief.

The neon blue credit balance at the bottom indicates a recent deposit of $200,000.

‘I think that should more than cover your losses.’ Lilith sits back on the cushion.

‘This is… crazy,’ Danny says, ‘I don’t understand?’

Lilith smiles, her bleached white teeth bright against her Mesoamerican-African-American complexion. ‘A gift, Daniel. From one who has-to one in need.’

Emotion crumbles Danny’s face. Glee. Tears. Relief. Exhaustion. ‘I don’t know what to say?’

‘Just say thank you.’

‘Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you-’

‘What’s the catch?’ Sia asks.

Lilith smiles. ‘Maybe I’m just trying to buy my way into heaven?’

‘I doubt that.’

‘Sia!’

‘It’s all right, Daniel. Your wife is right to question my motives. I’ve heard it said that sin is the Devil’s daughter. Do you know what’s worse?’

‘No.’

‘Fear.’ Lilith stands, allowing her hand to casually tease Sia’s hair as she walks by. ‘I was raised by fear. For as long as I can remember, fear dominated my dreams and every waking thought in between. It robbed me of my childhood, stole my innocence, and left me its victim. Fear of death. Fear of abuse. Fear of being abandoned, of being alone. Fear of losing love.’

She settles on the sofa opposite Daniel. ‘You know what the worst thing about fear is? It keeps us from recognizing our one true power… that each of us possesses free will. Fear kept me in check for fourteen years, feeding off me, until it pushed me to the brink of suicide. And that’s when I grew angry. Anger mobilized me to take risks. From that moment on, I stopped being life’s victim. I learned to use the powers of the flesh to get what I want.’ She motions with her hands.

Danny nods, mesmerized by her words and his Ecstasy-laced cocktail.

‘You married wealth,’ Sia states. ‘What risks did you ever take?’

Lilith spreads her legs slightly and winks at Danny, offering him a tantalizing view of her crotch. ‘It takes talent to marry into wealth, Sylvia, especially when you come from nothing. Wealth must be seduced… teased. Power requires trust, trust-deception. Look at Daniel. He took a risk tapping into his company’s funds, no doubt seduced by your own greed and ambition. I admire that. The ability to seduce makes us powerful, don’t you agree?’

‘And thank God for it,’ Danny says, feeling giddy.

‘God may have given us our sex organs, Daniel, but it was Lucifer who taught us how to use them. Now show me yours.’

‘Huh?’

‘My presence makes your wife jealous. Use it to your advantage.’

Danny’s pulse throbs. ‘I… I don’t understand?’

‘Show me the new Daniel Diaz, the man you always dreamed you’d be. You have your money, now take control of the moment. Order Sylvia to perform oral sex.’

‘You’re nuts, lady.’ Sia stands to leave. ‘Keep your damn money, I’m nobody’s whore.’

‘We’re all whores, sister. Watch me, I’ll show you how it’s-’

‘No!’ Sia pushes Lilith aside. Quivering with anger and adrenaline, she stumbles around the coffee table to her husband. ‘Take off your pants.’

‘Sia-’

‘Shut up and do it. She paid for a show, we’ll give it to her.’

Danny moans as his bride takes control, burying her face in his groin.

Lilith moves closer. ‘It’s all about power, isn’t it, sister. Who controls who.’ She grabs Sia by her hair and yanks her face away before Danny can climax.

‘Hey-’

In Lilith’s free hand is a small box. Sia opens it.

Inside is her engagement ring.

‘Sisters share.’

Sia feels dizzy, lost, as if she is living the moment from someone else’s perspective. She watches as Lilith places her mouth against her husband’s erect organ.

Danny lays his head back and closes his eyes.

For Daniel Diaz, senior structural engineer at NASA’s Top-Secret Project: GOLDEN FLEECE, the night is indeed still young.

Fraternity Row, University of Miami

Lauren wraps her arms tighter around Sam’s waist as he propels the Harley-Davidson HY-1200 motorcycle along College Avenue at 96 mph. Wind whistles past her headgear, the sleek black-and-chrome hydrogen-powered cycle cutting a hole through the humid evening air.

Sam banks hard, directing his hog into the student parking lot. He reaches for Lauren’s hand, but she pulls it away. ‘Come on, don’t stay mad.’

‘Why this Tanner woman? Can’t someone else interview you?’

‘It’s part of my PCAA obligations, Lauren. What am I supposed to do, insist on a male reporter?’

‘Yes!’

‘Well, I can’t, okay? So just drop it.’

‘Fine.’ They walk down Fraternity Row in silence. ‘You know, Sam, maybe it’s time we see other people.’

‘Come on, Lauren.’

‘No, I’m serious. We’ve been together since ninth grade. It’s not healthy.’

‘Says who? Your friend, Tierney? She’s just jealous.’

‘Maybe… but she has a point. We need a break before we get married. You should experience some other people.’

‘Lauren-’

‘I’m serious. If I get that research grant, I’ll be gone for four weeks. Use the time to “grind some fresh bone.” Get it out of your system. If you don’t do it now, our marriage’ll never last.’

‘And what about you? You planning on “draining” some park ranger while you watch Old Faithful?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Bullshit.’ He spins her around, then sees the tears. ‘Lauren, I don’t want to grind other women.’ He smiles. ‘I just want to grind you.’

‘Okay. But I swear, if I find out you were with that-’

He kisses her, cutting off the expletive.

Lauren kisses him back. Passion replaces fear as she grinds her pelvis into his, drawing him in deeper. ‘Let’s… skip… the party.’

‘Can’t.’

‘Yes you can.’ She continues kissing him, rubbing her hand along his crotch.

‘I can’t… okay maybe… no, wait-wait, stop, Lauren, stop-I have to make an appearance. Just a couple of minutes, okay?’

‘Why?’

‘Because they’re my teammates.’

She stops teasing him. ‘Some teammates. If you ask me-’

‘Which I didn’t-’

‘-they’re more like your employees. All they care about is their damn playoff bonuses. You need to look out for you. You should have turned pro last year.’

‘Well, I didn’t. Now come on, we’ll stay for an hour and finish this in your apartment.’

‘No we won’t.’ She pushes him away. ‘I won’t be in the mood.’

‘Fine.’ He takes her hand, leading her toward the frat house. ‘Hey, maybe I’ll meet some fresh bone-’

He winces as she slaps him upside the head.

The orange-and-white-stucco, horseshoe-shaped two-storey structure affectionately known as ‘Jock-U’ is an open-air hacienda-style mansion containing an in-ground football-shaped swimming pool, hot tub, and, for those annoying rainy days-a retractable sunroof. The facility sleeps 112, has a full-time staff of cooks, trainers, maids, and tutors on the premises, and like Sam’s Harley, is paid for out of the PCAA athletic budget.

The Professional Collegiate Athletic Association took roots back in 2008 when the former governing body of ‘amateur’ intercollegiate athletics, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, lost a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of five thousand student-athletes who charged the NCAA had no right to prevent them from receiving nonathletic-related monies while enrolled in school. Faced with the reality of finally having to pay their breadwinners, the NCAA voted to reorganize into a separate and independent governing body dedicated solely to ‘professional’ collegiate athletics. Encompassing Men’s Division I-A football and men and women’s Division I basketball, the Professional Collegiate Athletic Association (PCAA) established standardized pay scales and benefit programs for its revenue-generating participants. This included full tuition, room and board, school supplies, a monthly stipend (based on undergraduate status) and a bonus program, which rewarded grade point average as well as postseason tournament participation. To remain eligible, a PCAA student-athlete was required to attend class (in person) and demonstrate satisfactory progress toward a five-year degree. Any athlete could try out for the professional leagues at any time and still return to school-provided they had not yet accepted a pro signing bonus (usually held in escrow until after final cuts) or played a minute of regular-season ball. Any PCAA athlete who did turn pro prior to graduation was required to immediately refund from their signing bonuses all stipend monies earned while at school. Athletes choosing to remain in school until graduation earned a ‘diploma bonus’ a figure based on the team’s won-lost record during their years of participation.

By 2017, the PCAA football playoffs were generating revenues surpassing those of the National Football League and National Basketball Asociation.

Lauren follows Sam through the Art Deco security arch leading to the front entrance. He places his hand upon the SID pad.

A holograph appears-a well-endowed topless blonde wearing a G-string. The model’s computerized face has been replaced with Coach DeMaio’s, the voice with that of teen pop singer Lacy Wong. ‘Good evening, Samuel Agler, you hunka-hunka burning Hurricane love. Please enter me so I may please you.’

‘Uh, thanks… Coach.’

They pass through the weapon detector’s violet indicator beam. The double doors slide open, allowing them entry into a high-ceilinged hall engorged with loud technomusic, neon holographic creatures, flashing lights, and mobs of mostly naked bodies.

Lauren leans over, yells, ‘It’s like the last days of Rome meets disco.’

K. C. Renner, who is wearing an aluminocloth shirt and boxer shorts, is the first to greet them. ‘My bonus baby, gimme some bone.’ Renner’s and Sam’s knuckles collide.

‘Good evening, Lauren.’ Renner’s voice turns sarcastically stuffy. ‘So glad you could join us.’ The quarterback shakes her hand, then licks it.

‘You’re disgusting.’

‘Thank you. Food’s everywhere, plenty of strange… oops, sorry. M’casa es su casa.’

The staccato pulse of the bass, originating from surround-sound speakers strategically placed beneath the porous floorboards, is literally sending music vibrating up through their bodies.

‘Isn’t it a bit loud?’ Lauren yells.

‘Yeah, great crowd. Hey, everyone’s out by the pool. Come on.’ Renner leads them through the packed hall. Groping blue-and-yellow-tinted hands reach out to touch them as they pass.

A set of soundproof Plexiglas doors part, allowing them to escape the noise into a home entertainment holograph suite. The doors hiss close behind them, shutting out the hallway acoustics.

The room is black, backlit by matching columns of ceiling-to-floor lava lamps and a 3-D holographic movie projecting in front of the far wall.

As Lauren’s eyes adjust to the dark, she notices movement along the floor-couples, making out in sensory body bags.

K. C. directs them through a second set of soundproof doors. They pass the food prep room and exit into the courtyard.

Humidity and the heavy scent of the pool’s ozone filtration system hits them square in the face. The soothing calypso sounds of Cuban heartthrob, Elian, comes from palm tree speakers planted along the periphery.

Cheerleaders, groupies, and prostitutes, most of them naked, lounge in and around the football-shaped pool in clusters, a dozen of Sam’s teammates drifting from one group to the next. Lauren spots Jerry Tucker in the hot tub, the enormous lineman sandwiched between two bare-breasted Jamaican-dyed Asian girls. Another teammate is lying on the deck behind him, passed out in a puddle of vomit.

She shakes her head. ‘Miami’s gridiron warriors. Pillaging the village before their next conquest.’

Ken Hudak, the team’s heavily muscled, pine-green-dyed middle linebacker, struts toward them, dragging his date, a Haitian girl wearing only a bandanna around her waist. Lauren stares at the couple’s his-and-her hip tattoo, which creates the illusion of two bulldogs doing it doggy style when the pair are making love with the girl on top.

‘Mule-we gotta talk, man.’ Before Lauren can object, Hudak drapes his arm around her fiance and leads him away.

K. C. shrugs. ‘Sam’s a popular guy.’

‘Too popular.’

The Haitian girl slides over to K. C., grinding her bare groin into his hip. ‘I’m tired of playing defensive ball. How ’bout teaching me a little offense?’

K. C. winks at Lauren. ‘Back in a minute.’

‘Yeah, go grind your brains out.’ She watches him lead the girl away.

Lauren’s eyes search for Sam. She spots him by the hot tub, surrounded by most of the team’s defensive starters, all of whom are dyed the same shade of Miami green.

The hell with this… She heads back inside.

‘You’re accusing me of tanking it?’ Sam shakes his head in disbelief.

Hudak leans in, spewing his garlic breath. ‘We lost. No way we lose to the fubishitting Seminole-holes if you’re running the way you usually do.’

‘I had 104 yards on the ground, 54 more receiving. I scored a touchdown.’

‘Don’t diss us, Mule,’ says Keith Plourde, the Hurricanes’ cocaptain. ‘You haven’t run for less than two hundred yards since you were in grade school.’

‘I need that playoff bonus, Mule,’ Brian Mundt whines. ‘I’m fuupdass without it.’

‘Maybe you wouldn’t be so fucked-up-the-ass if you learned how to tackle,’ Sam says, pushing the defensive end out of his face.

‘I heard a ton of gamblers lost money on the point spread today,’ Keith Plourde states, accusingly. ‘Maybe you were in on the action, huh?’

Sam lunges for Plourde, pile-driving him backward against a palm tree.

Hudak and Mundt intercede before the first punch is thrown.

‘Knock it off!’ The veins in Hudak’s thick neck bulge like garter snakes. ‘We know Mule wouldn’t do that, K. P. What we don’t know is if our soul brother is turnin’ pro?’

‘Not this season.’

‘Yeah, but what about next year?’ asks Jeff ‘Bubba’ Larsen, Miami’s six-foot-three-inch, three-hundred-pound all-American strong-side linebacker.

‘I don’t know.’ Sam stares down Larsen, his heart pounding with adrenaline. ‘I haven’t decided.’

‘Fuck!’ Now it’s Larsen who is ready to strike. ‘You leave after this year, and we’re all fuupdass. Between stipes and bonuses, we’re talkin’ a buck forty large a piece.’

‘One forty-five,’ corrects Mundt.

‘Most of us don’t got two-hundred-million-dollar GFL contracts waiting out there,’ growls Matt Eterginio, the starting free safety.

‘None of us have,’ Sam corrects. ‘You’re supposed to be an English major, Matt. Of course, you’re also supposed to be a free safety, but that didn’t stop FSU from takin’ it to the house on you all afternoon.’

‘Okay, everybody just calm down,’ commands Hudak. ‘Look, Mule, we’re your teammates. Your brothers. Brothers stick together.’

Brothers stick together… The words seem to echo in his brain.

‘Are you gonna be there for us, Mule?’

They crowd around, creating a pine-green wall of flesh.

*

Lauren surveys the banquet table of food and drugs in the dining hall. The sushi and Chinese ribs look tantalizing, but she passes. The last time she ate at one of K. C.’s parties, she ended up playing naked volleyball on the dean’s lawn.

She hears cheers. Bored, she follows the sound to the entertainment suite.

A dozen football players are lying on body cushions, drinking beer and watching a 3-D holographic replay of the Miami-FSU game. Lauren grabs a juice pouch off the cooler tree and takes a seat on the floor.

The projection is playing Miami’s opening drive. A hovering spherical-video end zone cam zooms in on K. C. Renner as he mouths incomprehensible signals, the action set at ultraslow motion. The quarterback takes the snap and pitches the ball to Sam, who heads to his right, where several Seminole players are waiting.

Wild cheers of ‘Mule… Mule… Mule’ as Sam executes an eye-popping pirouette, races back toward the line of scrimmage, then stiff-arms his way through a wall of defenders like a mad bull, opening up his own hole.

Lauren feels goose bumps. She allows herself a smile. Maybe I won’t be tired tonight…

The camera zooms in tight on Sam’s face.

She stops smiling.

Lauren Beckmeyer has known Samuel Agler since they were in ninth grade. In all that time, she has never seen anything like the expression now etched on her boyfriend’s face.

Fear.