He began to cough and it took him almost a minute to get the spasms under control. The doctors had told him a year ago to stop smoking because of his bad heart and the trouble with his lungs. They hadn’t come right out and told him he was dying, but he knew it anyway, and he didn’t much care anymore. All he cared about was getting even with Dan Calebow.

Ray Senior relished every Stars’ loss because it proved the team wasn’t worth shit without his kid. He had made up his mind that he was going to stay alive until the day everybody knew what a mistake that bastard had made by cutting Ray Junior. He was going to stay alive until the day Calebow had to eat the dirt of what he had done.

The smell of scotch and expensive cigars enveloped Phoebe as she entered the owner’s skybox the following Sunday. She was doing what she had sworn she wouldn’t—attend a football game—but Ron had convinced her that the owner of the Stars couldn’t miss the opening game of the regular season.

The hexagonal Midwest Sports Dome had actually been constructed in an abandoned gravel quarry that sat at the center of a hundred acres of land just north of the Tollway. When the Stars weren’t playing, the distinctive glass and steel dome was home to everything from religious crusades to tractor pulls. It had banquet facilities, an elegant restaurant, and seats for eighty-five thousand people.

“This is an expensive piece of real estate,” Phoebe murmured to Ron as she took in the owner’s skybox with its two television sets and front wall of windows looking down on the field. She had learned that skyboxes in the Midwest Sports Dome were leased for eighty thousand dollars a year.

“Skyboxes are one of the few profit items we have in that miserable stadium contract Bert signed,” Ron said as he closed the door behind them. “This is actually two units turned into one.”

She gazed through the cigar smoke at the luxurious gold and blue decor: thick pile carpeting, comfortable lounge chairs, a well-stocked mahogany bar. There were nine or ten men present, either cronies of her father’s or owners of the fifteen percent of the Stars that Bert had sold several years ago when he’d needed to raise money.

“Ron, do you notice anything out of place here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Me. I’m the only woman. Don’t any of these men have wives?”

“Bert didn’t allow women in the owner’s box during games.” Mischievous lights twinkled in his eyes. “Too much chatter.”

“You’re kidding.”

“The wives have box seats outside. It’s not an unknown practice in the NFL.”

“The boys’ club.”

“Exactly.”