Chapter 7: The Captain's Silence

Mac read Moberly's post over my shoulder in the studio parking lot.

"Old friends," she said. "Were you?"

"I was his captain for eight years."

"That's not what I asked."

It was the second time that week a woman had told me that.

That night the house was loud with pizza and the Texan's music.

Mac sat on the edge of the empty pool with a beer she didn't drink.

I sat down beside her, because she'd been waiting for me to.

"I was in Crown's academy," she said. "When I was twenty."

"I didn't know that."

"I know you didn't."

She spun the bottle on the concrete.

"The academy coach kept thirty percent of our tournament money. For the program, he said."

The academy was Crown's farm team, kids who practiced in the same building in El Segundo.

"I went to Moberly with the bank statements," Mac said. "A week later I was dropped for attitude."

"And nobody would sign you after."

"Not for three years. Not until the Owls."

She looked at me.

"I stopped you in the hallway that week. You were coming out of the main practice room with your headset around your neck."

I tried to see it, and I couldn't.

"I told you what he was doing to us," she said. "You said, 'That's not my team, kid.'"

The Texan's music thumped through the sliding door.

"I don't remember it," I said.

"Yeah. I figured."

"That's worse."

"Yeah," Mac said. "It is."

There was no speech I could make that would've been worth anything.

"He's still there," I said. "The academy coach."

"He coaches the kids Moberly wants to put on our slot."

She stood up and poured the beer out into the dry pool.

"I don't need you to be sorry, Crown," she said. "Take a map off them Saturday."