Myron took a deep breath. “No problem. I’ll throw Otto and Larry out. It’ll be good for the negotiations. I’ll be there in an hour.”

It took a lot longer.

Myron entered the Kinney garage on Forty-sixth Street, not too far from his Park Avenue office. He nodded to Mario, the garage attendant, walked past the pricing sheet, which had a small disclaimer on the bottom that read “not including 97% tax,” and headed to his car on the lower level. A Ford Taurus. Your basic Babe Magnet.

He was about to unlock the door when he heard a hissing sound. Like a snake. Or more likely, air escaping from a tire. The sound emanated from his back right tire. A quick examination told Myron that it had been slashed.

“Hi, Myron.”

He spun around. Two men grinned at him. One was the size of a small Third World nation. Myron was big—nearly six-four and two hundred twenty pounds—but he guessed that this guy must have been six-six and closing in on three hundred. A heavy-duty weight lifter, his whole body was puffed up as if he were wearing inflatable life vests under his clothes. The second man was of average build. He wore a fedora.

The big man lumbered toward Myron’s car. His arms swung stiffly at his sides. He kept tilting his head, cracking the part of the anatomy that on a normal human being might be called a neck.

“Having some car trouble?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Flat tire,” Myron said. “There’s a spare in the trunk. Change it.”

“I don’t think so, Bolitar. This was just a little warning.”

“Oh?”

The human edifice grabbed the lapels of Myron’s jacket. “Stay away from Chaz Landreaux. He’s already signed.”

“First change my tire.”

The grin increased. It was a stupid, cruel grin. “Next time I won’t be so nice.” He grabbed a little tighter, bunching up the suit and tie. “Understand?”

“You are aware, of course, that steroids make your balls shrink.”

The man’s face reddened. “Oh, yeah? Maybe I oughta smash your face in, huh? Maybe I oughta pulverize you into oatmeal.”

“Oatmeal?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice image, really.”

“Fuck you.”

Myron sighed. Then his whole body seemed to snap into motion at the same time. He started with a head-butt that landed square on the big man’s nose. There was a squelching noise like beetles being stepped on. Blood gushed from the nose.

“Son of a—”

Myron cradled the back of the big man’s head for leverage and smashed his elbow into the sweet of the Adam’s apple, nearly caving the windpipe all the way in. There was a painful, gurgling choke. Then silence. Myron followed up with a knife-hand strike to the back of the neck below the skull.

The big man slid to the ground like wet sand.

“Okay, that’s enough!”

The man with the fedora stepped closer, a gun drawn and pointed at Myron’s chest.

“Back away from him. Now!”

Myron squinted at him. “Is that really a fedora?”

“I said, back off!”

“Okay, okay, I’m backing.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” the smaller man said with almost childlike hurt. “He was just doing his job.”

“A misunderstood youth,” Myron added. “Now I feel terrible.”

“Just stay away from Chaz Landreaux, okay?”

“Not okay. Tell Roy O’Connor I said it’s not okay.”

“Hey, I ain’t hired to get no answer. I’m just delivering.”

Without another word the man with the fedora helped his fallen colleague to his feet. The big man stumbled to their car, one hand on his nose, the other massaging his windpipe. His nose was busted, but his throat would hurt even worse, especially when he swallowed.

They got in and quickly drove away. They did not stop to change Myron’s tire.

Chapter 2

Myron dialed Chaz Landreaux’s number on his car phone.

Not being what one would call mechanically inclined, it had taken Myron half an hour to change the tire. He rode slowly for the first few miles, fearing his handiwork would encourage the tire to slip off and flee. When he felt more confident, he accelerated and started back on the road to Christian’s.

When Chaz answered, Myron quickly explained what happened.

“They was already here,” Chaz told him. Lots of noise in the background. An infant cried. Something fell and broke. Children laughed. Chaz shouted for quiet.

“When?” Myron asked.

“Hour ago. Three men.”

“Did they hurt you?”

“Nah. Just held me down and made threats. Said they was going to break my legs if I didn’t honor my contract.”

Breaking legs, Myron thought. How original.

Chaz Landreaux was a senior basketball player at Georgia State and a probable first-round NBA pick. He was a poor kid from the streets of Philadelphia. He had six brothers, two sisters, no father. The ten of them lived in an area that—if daringly improved—might one day be charitably dubbed “poor ghetto.”

During his freshman year, an underling of a big-time agent named Roy O’Connor had approached Chaz—four years before Chaz was eligible to talk to an agent. The man offered Chaz a five-thousand-dollar “retainer” up front, with monthly payments of $250, if he signed a contract making O’Connor his agent when he turned pro.

Chaz was confused. He knew that NCAA rules forbade him from signing a contract while he still had eligibility. The contract would be declared null and void. But Roy’s man assured him this would be no problem. They would simply postdate the contract to make it appear Chaz had signed on after his final year of eligibility. They’d keep the contract in a safety deposit box until the proper time arrived. No one would be the wiser.

Chaz was not sure. He knew it was illegal, but he also knew what that kind of money would mean to his mom and eight siblings living in a two-room hellhole. Roy O’Connor then entered the picture and pitched the final inducement: If Chaz changed his mind at some future date, he could repay the money and tear up the contract.

Four years later Chaz changed his mind. He promised to pay back every cent. No way, said Roy O’Connor. You have a contract with us. You’ll stick with it.

This was not an uncommon setup. Dozens of agents did it. Norby Walters and Lloyd Bloom, two of the country’s biggest agents, had been arrested for it. Threats too were not uncommon. But that was where it usually ended: with threats. No agent wanted to risk being exposed. If a kid stood firm, the agent backed off.