left, locking the door with the key Raul had given her.
Raul was waiting outside. She gave him the key, and also the copies of the plans from her purse.
“You did well.” He spoke quietly, in Basque dialect. “Now I want you to forget these papers.” He put them inside his shirt and tapped his chest for emphasis. “Do not ask me about them or speak of them again, even when we are alone. Do you understand?”
“You men with your secrets,” she replied, also in Basque. She kissed him lightly and hurried back to the stadium tunnel where the UBC trucks were parked. Maria was grateful he had not asked why she was working so late, for if he questioned her and learned how her stupidity had nearly lost both of them their jobs, he would be very angry.
She would not tell him about Miguelito’s ticket, she decided, until just before the championship game.
16
Wayne Taggart’s gray eyes glittered with resentment as he peered over Cindy Ling’s shoulder. The slender young oriental production assistant could not see Taggart’s expression; she was busy adding a musical soundtrack to replace a voice-over in the final segment of Dan Richard’s documentary on the Russian team. Cindy also did not notice that Taggart was reading the instructions Sharon had given her, and that the instructions were making him progressively more angry.
Taggart’s temper was flaring for several reasons, the basic one of which was that the orders Cindy was following were Sharon’s and not his. Production—Larry Noble and Sharon— had gone ahead and made their decision without even consulting him. They would say, he knew, that time pressures were involved, that the responsibility was theirs and not his, and would be quick to point out other occasions on which they had sought his advice. But that changed nothing.
He could see the trend developing. He could feel in the pit of his stomach the same hurt and bile that had come up two decades ago on the neighborhood vacant lot in Weehawken, New Jersey, when one of the bigger, faster kids would come back to the huddle and say, “Let’s try one with me at quarterback instead of Taggart.” It made no difference that it was Taggart’s football; the others would nod, yeah, yeah, and one or two plays later Taggart would be down in the dirt on the line getting his teeth kicked in, all because one kid had succeeded in getting him to step aside for “just this one play.”
Taggart’s memory often dwelt on the consequences that had flowed inexorably from those vacant-lot games. In his mind’s eye he could see now the high school try outs on the hot, dirty August afternoons, four years of them, when he would stand in cleats and shoulder pads with the others, trying out for quarterback, waiting for his turn to throw, or hand off, or run—and because he hadn’t had the experience in the sandlots that owning the football should have entitled him to, the others had been better. And after two or three days, every year, the burning in his stomach would come back as the assistant coach would take him aside after practice and say, “Wayne, we’ve gotta make some cuts now.”
In baseball and basketball it had been the same story, but he remembered football the most vividly because of what had happened in his senior year. Cut as a player, he had still been determined to earn a letter for the bulky white sweater his parents had bought him. So he had gone out for team manager. During a critical game, he had spotted a weakness in the opposition and sent in Ernie Zapporello with a play he just knew would work. “Coach says go in and run a forty-eight counter, Ern!” he had whispered between plays, and Ernie had charged out onto the field, followed moments later by a surprised and angry coach, screaming for Ernie to get back to the bench.
Taggart was dismissed on the spot. The play would have worked, though, Taggart was sure of that to this very day.
Another thing that burned him about Sharon’s
Raul was waiting outside. She gave him the key, and also the copies of the plans from her purse.
“You did well.” He spoke quietly, in Basque dialect. “Now I want you to forget these papers.” He put them inside his shirt and tapped his chest for emphasis. “Do not ask me about them or speak of them again, even when we are alone. Do you understand?”
“You men with your secrets,” she replied, also in Basque. She kissed him lightly and hurried back to the stadium tunnel where the UBC trucks were parked. Maria was grateful he had not asked why she was working so late, for if he questioned her and learned how her stupidity had nearly lost both of them their jobs, he would be very angry.
She would not tell him about Miguelito’s ticket, she decided, until just before the championship game.
16
Wayne Taggart’s gray eyes glittered with resentment as he peered over Cindy Ling’s shoulder. The slender young oriental production assistant could not see Taggart’s expression; she was busy adding a musical soundtrack to replace a voice-over in the final segment of Dan Richard’s documentary on the Russian team. Cindy also did not notice that Taggart was reading the instructions Sharon had given her, and that the instructions were making him progressively more angry.
Taggart’s temper was flaring for several reasons, the basic one of which was that the orders Cindy was following were Sharon’s and not his. Production—Larry Noble and Sharon— had gone ahead and made their decision without even consulting him. They would say, he knew, that time pressures were involved, that the responsibility was theirs and not his, and would be quick to point out other occasions on which they had sought his advice. But that changed nothing.
He could see the trend developing. He could feel in the pit of his stomach the same hurt and bile that had come up two decades ago on the neighborhood vacant lot in Weehawken, New Jersey, when one of the bigger, faster kids would come back to the huddle and say, “Let’s try one with me at quarterback instead of Taggart.” It made no difference that it was Taggart’s football; the others would nod, yeah, yeah, and one or two plays later Taggart would be down in the dirt on the line getting his teeth kicked in, all because one kid had succeeded in getting him to step aside for “just this one play.”
Taggart’s memory often dwelt on the consequences that had flowed inexorably from those vacant-lot games. In his mind’s eye he could see now the high school try outs on the hot, dirty August afternoons, four years of them, when he would stand in cleats and shoulder pads with the others, trying out for quarterback, waiting for his turn to throw, or hand off, or run—and because he hadn’t had the experience in the sandlots that owning the football should have entitled him to, the others had been better. And after two or three days, every year, the burning in his stomach would come back as the assistant coach would take him aside after practice and say, “Wayne, we’ve gotta make some cuts now.”
In baseball and basketball it had been the same story, but he remembered football the most vividly because of what had happened in his senior year. Cut as a player, he had still been determined to earn a letter for the bulky white sweater his parents had bought him. So he had gone out for team manager. During a critical game, he had spotted a weakness in the opposition and sent in Ernie Zapporello with a play he just knew would work. “Coach says go in and run a forty-eight counter, Ern!” he had whispered between plays, and Ernie had charged out onto the field, followed moments later by a surprised and angry coach, screaming for Ernie to get back to the bench.
Taggart was dismissed on the spot. The play would have worked, though, Taggart was sure of that to this very day.
Another thing that burned him about Sharon’s
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