That night had gone okay, but the next night, and the next—it seemed impossible to get back up. So he called again. The first fifty had been on name recognition, the next was on promise of the signed balls, the 2008 MVP trophy. Another guy, not the loan shark, but “an associate”—a skinny, tall man who looked sunbaked and shifty—collected the bucket of balls from Jason’s shed one morning. He crossed paths with Sara making her daily delivery of coffee and a bran muffin, and Jason watched from the door as the two of them brushed shoulders. Sara stonewalled the guy, stared right through him like he wasn’t even there, like he wasn’t leaning sideways with the weight of the bucket of marked-up balls and grinning at her. Like she recognized him but didn’t want to. The skinny guy laughed and said it was funny, their meeting here. Sara waited until he was good and gone before she handed Jason his coffee. Who was that? Jason asked.

Sara chewed her lip. I could ask you the same.

Then he had a good night at the table, after an ugly loss to the Padres (he’d scored, but they lost 9–2), and that got him a few feet closer to the surface. He didn’t have to call the shark again for a week, but then he did, having started an evening with half a million of his own chips, then getting down to nothing. He felt absolutely certain that with another hand or two he could turn it around, get it up to $750K, maybe even a million. He was certain. He’d done it before, million-dollar nights. The shark didn’t sound too happy to answer Jason’s call at midnight, but he also answered on the second ring. A waitress came over with a Jack and soda and a handful of chips.

The spring continued, and his losses mounted. That creepy associate showed up on the floor at odd hours, playing Texas Hold’em at the next table (and folding every hand after the kitty, watching Jason’s table rather than his own game). Jason would see him around the stadium, too, where the autograph seekers and desperate women loitered. Ten-mile stare, or leering like a wacko—the guy had both looks down pat. Sara still delivered the morning coffee but was jumpier now, worried that she’d see him, too. Apparently, she had known him in some past life—she admitted he was a friend of her ex, both of them bad news—but she wouldn’t say any more about it.