T.K.’s eyes are filled with soap, so he can’t see Abelman’s face. The senator’s ominous tone indicates he’s not altogether convinced everything was strictly aboveboard with the way Deutsch expired.

Abelman goes on. “Deutsch died last week. Ostensibly, he suffered a heart attack at his desk the day after I saw the Attorney General. He lapsed into a coma from which he never recovered. He was given an autopsy. By the IBC president’s personal physician, strangely enough, and that was it. Massive heart arrest, says the report. I’m not convinced. His death was too neatly timed to have been a coincidence.” Risking a sound drenching, the senator sticks his head inside the shower to insure T.K. can hear him above the sound of the running water. “It might interest you to know that IBC is providing nothing, not so much as a nickel, to his wife and children.”

“Indecent bastards, aren’t they?” T.K. scrubs off his head, turns off the water and sticks his hand outside. “Hand me my towel, would you?”

Abelman does.

T.K. dries off his head, neck and shoulders. He’s halfway down his chest before he speaks. “The answer is no.”

“The answer to what?”

“Let’s not be coy, Senator. We both know why you’re here. The answer is no, I won’t go with you to see whomever you’ve decided to go to see next. Not until after the Killerbowl.” T.K. sits down on a bench, takes a hot medicated towel from out of a nearby sterilizer, and wraps it around his face, making sure it covers the bleeder wounds on his neck. No sooner does he have it in place than Abelman, in a rare fit of anger, rips it off.

“That’s insane. That’s criminally insane. These network people aren’t simply rigging games. They’re killing people. People other than football players. Deutsch. I’m positive they killed Deutsch. You can’t ignore that.”

Calmly, T.K. rewraps his face, leaving his mouth open. “I can, and I will.”

Senator Abelman leans in closer so his voice will penetrate through the layers of cloth. “Even though it means innocent people will die?”

“They would have died anyway, whether I knew about this or not.”

“Now you can prevent it.”

“Right after the Killerbowl, I will.”