Nineteen by Ward Tracey

Author:Ward, Tracey [Ward, Tracey]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2020-01-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

SLOANE

When Trey is gone I spot Hollis on the far side of the lobby. I cut across the room to where he’s talking to an older man in his fifties. He’s dressed well but his hair is long and a little wild. So are his eyes. His face is familiar but I can’t place him. Hollis casts me a relieved look when he sees me coming his way. He abruptly cuts his conversation short to meet me.

“Thank God,” he mumbles, taking my arm to turn me around and put distance between us and the man. “He would not shut up.”

“Who is that?”

“Berny Dawe.”

“Oh my God,” I gasp, turning my head to get a better look at him. “Are you serious? I’ve never seen him in person.”

Hollis tightens his hold on my arm. “Do not look back,” he hisses. “It’s bad enough he got ahold of me. If he gets Brad Ashford’s daughter in his grip, he’ll never let go.”

“What’d he say to you?”

“What he always says to Ashford agents. That we work for the Devil and we should jump ship to go work for him instead.”

“He should put that on a billboard. Brad would consider it free advertising.”

“It’s not funny. The poor guy used to be a legend in this business before his agency all but collapsed.”

“Thanks to my dad,” I mutter, feeling more than a little ashamed.

“It’s a cutthroat business.”

“Yeah. Hey, speaking of, I need to talk to you.”

“What about?”

“Kurtis Matthews. Is he still unhappy in Montana?”

Hollis grimaces. “Miserable. Thanks for bringing it up.”

“What if I told you I knew a way to make him and you a whole lot happier?”

“I’d ask what’s in it for you?”

“Trey Domata going first round to the Kodiaks.”

He looks at me sideways, his eyes dubious but intrigued. “I’m listening.”

“Good,” I tell him, guiding him toward the dining hall, “because I need you to get Coach Allen listening too.”

I break my plan down for Hollis as we weave through the hotel. It’s simple and sweet, an easy sell to him and his miserable client, but the trick will be convincing a coach to play along. We need Allen on our side.

We find him just finishing his breakfast, alone in a corner in the sunshine. He watches us approach, his wrinkled face kept carefully blank.

Coach Allen is an old man. Trey exaggerated when he said he was a hundred, but there’s a reason he threw out that number; that’s about how old he legitimately looks. His head is completely bald and wrinkled, his face sags with heavy jowls, and the skin on his hands has that thin, papery look that the elderly get, their bones protruding prominently through the surface in an almost disconcerting way. But while his body is showing more wear than his years should allow, his mind is sharp as a knife. I can see it in his eyes, in the way he watches me sit down across from him and his breakfast.

Hollis pulls my chair out for me, a show

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