Page 49 of The Session

“If you have doubts—maybe the team had a bad reputation in the past—you want to make sure that’s behind them,” Mark theorized.

“Every program’s got baggage. Some of it’s out front, some of it’s hidden. But they’re all going to have issues. First, I look at management. Figure out if I’m aligned with them. Who they are, who the active ones are. Is there one owner, multiple owners? In college, it’s the AD. Are they assholes? I can deal with assholes, but not the kind that get into my business. Then I look at the coaching staff. Are they making the right decisions? What’s their history? Sometimes you can spot the problem in front of you by looking into the past. Then I look at the players and see if that’s something I can work with. It comes down to the people, boy. That’s who you’re going into battle with. And in a large army, they aren’t all saints, and over time, even the saints are going to do things they’re not proud of.”

“That’s helpful. I appreciate it,” Mark replied.

“My other piece of advice is don’t be too polite. Stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. I had an equipment manager ripping us off for hundreds of thousands of dollars—through laundry, of all things. The last thing he thought I’d pay attention to was that. I had a bad feeling about him and made it a habit to look at the accounting. The manager should’ve caught it, but he was distracted. Another time I noticed a young doctor, real slick guy, in the locker room a lot, talking to the players. I had a bad feeling about him. He was running a steroid clinic and was a bit too flashy. If he caught my attention, he was likely to catch the attention of the feds. I kicked him out and told the boys if I caught them within a mile of him, they’d have hell to pay. Lots of complaints, lots of grumbling. Eighteen months later, he got indicted and players from three football teams were named—none of them from mine. Sometimes you’ve just got to be an asshole.”

“Thanks, Coach. I appreciate it,” Mark replied.

“You going to be around for the game Sunday?” Stevenson asked.

Mark was about to say that wasn’t likely, but then it occurred to him it might be a great chance to see if Tru was being honest about the jet’s availability. He’d have a hard time wasting it for something as frivolous as dinner in Paris, but dropping in on Coach Stevenson felt like a perfectly good use.

“I think so. If anything changes, I’ll let you know,” Mark replied.

“How are you doing?” Tru asked after Mark exited the bathroom.

“Much better. Say, after the interview, I’d like to take a tour of the building.”

“That would be great. Anywhere you’d like to start?” Tru asked.

“I was thinking we start in the basement and work our way all the way to the top. I’d like to understand every department.”

“Ambitious,” said Tru. “I like it.”

Office Party

By the end of the day, Mark’s head was still spinning. He was pretty sure he had managed not to completely screw up recording the news interview by sticking to the preprepared statements and not going on too long. Afterward, Tru made good on her promise to give him the company tour.

On each floor, he met teams working on different areas of economic interest for Summit, but Tru told him privately that technically, on paper, he was meeting with tenants, not teams or divisions of Summit Strategies, because the company was actually an amalgamation of a bunch of different organizations that happened to be coworking in the same space. He wasn’t sure if this was clever corporate segmentation or some kind of legal or tax dodge. Probably both.

He heard from four different teams doing sports-affiliated work, including a company focused on wealth management, another managing social media accounts for athletes, a concierge nutrition and fitness program, and an organization that ran training camps for baseball and football teams.

Tru assured him that if none of them interested him, there were about twelve other companies she was arranging meetings with. In the meantime, there was that special project she had been alluding to . . .

Most staffers greeted Mark with enthusiasm, sometimes even a touch of reverence. Everywhere they went, he saw photos and sculptures of Max Lightman. Now he could see the resemblance. He assumed everyone around him was drawing similar conclusions after seeing his video and, now, getting a close look at his face.

Tru sent him back to the condo in the hired car with an apology. She wouldn’t be able to take him to dinner and show him the city because of a prior engagement. Mark was secretly relieved and looked forward to watching a game in the suite while he drank a beer and ate a cheeseburger.

After the concierge delivered the meal to the massive glass table in front of the even more massive television, Mark saw the messages waiting on his phone. The one that stood out most was Call me 911! from Vera Needleman, his attorney.

The message was seven hours old.

“Hello, Mark,” Needleman said sternly.

Her tone said everything he needed to know. She clearly wasn’t happy.

“How’s it going?” Mark asked, looking out at the dark-purple sky over the ocean.

“Did you hire a new law firm and social media strategy company?”

“Not exactly.”

“Okay, then could you tell me why I’m seeing the footage I’ve tried for weeks to get hold of all over TV and social media, plus an interview of you talking about what happened?”

“It leaked, and I agreed to do the interview. Is there a problem?”

“The district attorney’s office is pissed, Mark. They called my boss and started yelling at him, thinking we had leaked it. And then you pop up on TV, giving your side of what happened, and it looks like a damned campaign.”