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  Johnny gave a wry smile back. “Follow me into coaching. It’s the family business.”

  “There are worse things,” I acknowledged. “The hours are long, but the pay is great.”

  “Very true. Fortunately, he has a good contact in the NFL, just so long as I don’t get fired. I’ll probably bring him on as a scout at first, maybe operations coordinator. Let him learn the ropes from the ground up. But yeah, he knows all about the trade-offs and the work-life balance. Or lack thereof. So do you.”

  Indeed I did. I had spent three years coaching defensive backs at USC, an all-consuming job for much of the time, albeit one that paid ridiculously well. It took a certain type of obsessive individual to choose that life for the long haul, though. It was a career that could encompass annual relocations and one-hundred-hour work weeks. Family time was exceedingly rare. But Johnny and his wife found a way to make it work, and for them, it meant a lifestyle that was luxurious, to say the least.

  “I don’t think you’ll get fired,” I said, taking a sip of some sort of tropical-fruit iced tea. “Be bad form to fire a coach with a winning record.”

  Johnny shrugged. “It’s happened before, and it’s happened with the Bears. One guy got fired after going 10-6 one year and just missing out on the playoffs. The NFL demands success. But it goes with the territory. Most coaches know they’ll either end up getting fired or getting to the Hall of Fame. It’s okay. It’s what I signed up for.”

  “I know. Always compete. That’s what the Bulldog taught us.”

  Bulldog Martin was our coach when Johnny and I played in the secondary at USC. Back then, the pressure had not been dialed up as much, and we could not only go out and play football, but also have a semi-normal college experience. No one recorded dustups at fraternity parties, and there was no social media for armchair coaches to offer critiques if we missed an assignment. The Bulldog was a legendary figure who told us our biggest opponent was ourselves, and that if we performed up to our potential, lots of good things were bound to happen. Play hard all the time, so we didn’t have to rise to the moment. Let the other teams get geared up for playing us.

  “Hey, you remember our first night at training camp at SC, back in freshman year?” Johnny asked.

  I laughed. “Oh, yeah. The team meeting he had at the Coliseum at midnight. Coach divided the team into offense and defense and we did tug-of-war competitions.“

  “And remember at the end he told us that if the team was always pulling against each other, we’d never be a winner. He had us line up and we all grabbed the rope and pulled in one direction to demonstrate how easy it was. Sent a good message.”

  “I learned a lot from him. As much about life as about football,” I said. I had once thought my four years playing at SC were the best years of my life. Then I met Gail, we had Marcus, and that all changed.

  “So, it sounded like there was something you wanted to talk about,” Johnny said.

  “There is,” I replied. “Cody Groh.”

  Johnny’s eyes widened a bit, but his facial expression remained placid. “What’s the interest?”

  “I gather Cody started a business called WAVE. I looked it up, they rent out those electric scooters. Something’s going down near his office. I’m trying to get ahead of it.”

  The waitress came by and plopped a can of Tecate down in front of Johnny, along with a wedge of lime and a salt shaker. The idea was that you rubbed the rim of the can with the lime, and sprinkled some salt on top of it. Johnny ignored them both, picked up the can, and took a long pull.

  “I know about WAVE,” he said, wiping a corner of his mouth with a finger. “And you know all about Cody. I still remember that game down at Mater Dei. We were recruiting a three-hundred-pound nose guard and came away with Cody. You had him on your squad for freshman year.”

  “I sure do remember,” I said. Cody Groh was a track star who had won the state championship in high school for both the hundred-meter dash and the long jump. He was born with a motor that moved faster than most human beings and had a mind that moved quickly as well. He completed his bachelor’s degree by the middle of his junior year, and by the time his four years at SC were up, Cody had also earned an MBA. There were always a few kids on the team who finished their undergrad program early and continued on the team while taking a few graduate-level classes. But the ones actually earning a post-grad degree in four years were the exceptions.

  “Fastest kid on the team, but he couldn’t tackle anyone,” Johnny said wryly.

  “Good thing you found a place for him,” I offered. “Returning kicks was his specialty.”

  “So was that nifty run he made at the Rose Bowl,” Johnny said. “One of my favorite all-time plays. That changed the whole direction of the game. If I recall correctly, you suggested that one.”

  “Yup,” I smiled, thinking back to a happy moment, and then sliding into a darker memory. “I remember his grandparents coming up to me after the game, thanking us for offering him a scholarship. They were retired and hadn’t planned on putting him through college.”

  Johnny’s expression darkened. “Yeah. Tragic what happened to his parents.”

  “For sure,” I said. “I have a soft spot for any kid who loses his parents when they’re young. Brings back bad memories for me. But I was impressed Cody managed to get through it and move forward with his life. Just too bad you couldn’t keep him on the Bears.”

  “I know,” Johnny sighed. “The league’s a tough business, which is why I’ve been reluctant to draft guys I coached in college. Letting anyone go is a tough conversation, but it’s worse when you’ve known them for years. And after you’ve convinced them when they were in high school to come join us at SC. Cody’s time with the Bears went well at first. He returned two kickoffs for touchdowns in one game against the Packers, early on in his rookie season. You don’t see that very often. The whole city of Chicago fell in love with him. And he was smart, you know that. But in Chicago, he monetized it, used his public image to make a lot of contacts. Before the knee injury, anyway. Chicago’s not the easiest place to break into. But Cody did it. Give him a lot of credit for business savvy.”

  “That where he started WAVE?”

  “Yeah. Within six months he had lined up Angel funding for the business, and they launched it quickly. It was a hit, and he got a lot of mileage out of his name and persona.”

  “Angel funding?” I asked.

  “Group of venture capitalists that come together to fund a startup. Investors, basically, they provide seed money for new companies that might look a little risky. Say, you think Cody is in any trouble?”

  “That’s what I’m looking into. What do you think?”

  Johnny took another swig from his can. “Everybody loved him. But startups are shaky. Financially that is. Not all of these companies turn into Zoom. The reality is that most don’t. But when they hit it big, they often hit it really big.”

  “Risky,” I repeated. “Maybe this goes beyond financial in some way?”

  “I don’t know. Cody has always had his head on straight. But you know, some of his friends, people that helped him get this venture off the ground, I’m not so sure.”

  “Are these people from Chicago?” I asked.

  “Nah, most are from here. He brought in his buddies back from growing up in Laguna. There’s that kid from our team a few years ago, Ryan Concannon. And that center we tried to recruit, Sean Danelo, he ended up at Stanford. Cody brought them out to Chicago with him after graduation, they were part of his entourage, I guess. Both of them have been with WAVE since the beginning. Along with Cody, they’re the three founders. He’s brought other people he knew into the company, including his older sister and a few guys that were on the practice squad with the Bears. He’s been surrounding himself with people he knows. Generally, that’s a smart move.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Tell me about the knee injury.”

  Johnny shrugged. “It was last year, so that had to have been his se
cond year in the league. Pre-season game. Had him in at receiver, he got tackled and just went down the wrong way. Torn ACL. I always hate putting veterans in for preseason games, but for some players, it’s necessary. Toughens them up for the season. Summer camp only helps so much. When you just practice against your own squad, your guys are just not going to hit as hard. Plus, we were looking to maybe give Cody more playing time at receiver, and needed to evaluate him, even if it was just preseason. We knew what he could do in college, but the NFL is just different. There were questions we had, whether or not he was just going to be a kick returner. I’m not so sure he had the right stuff to make it as a receiver.”

  “And the injury put him out for the season?”

  “It pretty much wrecked his career. He did rehab and all that, but he hasn’t regained the speed. That burst was just gone. We had to waive him in April. Hated to do it, but speed is why Cody was in the league. And why he probably won’t be in the league going forward. One freak play and that’s it. It comes with the territory.“

  “But at least he had his business degree.”

  “Yeah,” Johnny smiled. “And he used it effectively. He’s not one of the guys I worry about. The guys I worry about are the ones who cruise through college, don’t study, don’t graduate, and then wash out of pro football after a year or two. Maybe an injury, maybe they’re just not good enough. They’re the ones who go back home and get themselves into trouble.”

  Our food came, and we dug in. Johnny ordered another Tecate and I had another iced tea. We talked about our families, about the kids we coached at SC, and what they were doing now. We talked about where our coaching colleagues from SC had scattered to when Johnny left, and they were all over the country at different colleges. A couple of them went along with him to the NFL.

  “So,” Johnny said. “You never answered my question as to whether Cody’s in some trouble. You think he might be?”

  “Something is going down at his place of business. Over in Playa Vista,” I said, not wanting to reveal too much. Not because I didn’t trust Johnny, but more because I didn’t want to concern him unnecessarily. “Might not involve Cody.”

  “Nevertheless, that’s worrisome,” Johnny said. “I know he’s put a lot into that business.”

  I considered this. “May end up being nothing. Or it might not have anything to do with Cody. I was asked to come in on a job that sounded off-kilter from the beginning. But I am impressed you know a bit about WAVE. You look after your players, even the former ones.”

  Johnny gave a small smile and took another swallow of Tecate. “There’s a reason I know something about WAVE.”

  “Oh?” I said, eyebrows raised. “What’s that?”

  “Pretty simple,” he responded. “I’m one of the Angel investors.”

  Chapter 2

  I was feeling good as I left Manhattan Beach; seeing old friends is always a good antidote for whatever is ailing you. I decided to take a leisurely drive up Vista del Mar, the narrow coast route that connects the South Bay to the Westside. With a purple-blue ocean on one side and wind-swept clouds overhead, it was a beautiful, scenic jaunt. But a few minutes into my excursion, I received a call from an LAPD detective named Paul Rainey, working out of the Pacific Division. He asked me to stop by the station right away. My ride was still scenic, just no longer so leisurely. By the time I hung up, Vista del Mar had turned into Culver Blvd., cutting through the Ballona Wetlands, which were anything but wet in late June. My brief escape from the urban quagmire had ended. After a few minutes, I pulled into the police station, just east of Centinela Avenue.

  During the summer, I rarely wore a jacket, so to stay armed, I kept my .357 strapped to my ankle. In the past, it was normally not a problem to carry it into most establishments. But in recent years, sports arenas and schools had been added to the growing list of places using metal detectors to prevent patrons from entering with a weapon. And there was one place where my handguns was expressly forbidden, and that was in a police station. I slipped mine off and buried it under the driver’s seat.

  I breezed past the harried receptionist, who barely gave me a glance. I found Paul Rainey sitting at a desk in a large, open space, staring into a computer monitor. He was tall and lean, had a long nose, and also had what looked like a permanent sneer on his face. He wore a cheap white shirt and a clip-on tie. His hair was graying, a good sign he was in his forties at least, and probably thinking about retirement soon. Most cops put in their twenty years and depart with a nice pension; a few stick around longer to collect extra benefits, often due to nasty divorces and sky-high alimony. There was no wedding band on Rainey’s finger, but there were a few pictures of teenagers on his desk. Another detective, younger and thicker, was sitting across from him, casually loading a Glock 22 handgun, giving it as much attention one might give to filling up a pink water pistol on a warm summer day.

  “Detective,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand. “I’m Burnside.”

  Detective Rainey gave my hand a quick shake, turned back to his computer screen, and motioned for me to sit. I sat down and waited two minutes for him to look at me again.

  “Burnside, Burnside,” he mused, a condescending look in his eye. “Now where have I heard that name?”

  “You spend much time in Palm Springs?”

  “No.”

  “Neither do I,” I said.” Maybe that’s it.”

  “I remember you now, Slick,” he said, nodding his head in mock recognition, pretending to have just recalled it. He turned to the detective next to him. “Hey, Joe. This is the guy that got kicked off the force. A few years ago, am I right?”

  Joe looked up. He had dark hair and a dark complexion, and wore a nicer outfit than his partner, a gray, button-down Oxford cloth shirt with white pinstripes. He had a bandage on his left hand. “Must have been before my time. I joined the department eight years ago,” he said, looking at me. “I’m Joe Hartwick. I’ll be working this, too.”

  “Pleasure to meet you,” I said. “What happened to your hand?”

  Hartwick shrugged, pulled out a pack of Lucky Strikes, and put one in his mouth without lighting it. “Just working around the house. Carpentry and stuff.”

  “Sounds like police work might be safer than home improvement,” I said.

  “I’m better at technology. But hey, we bought a fixer-upper in Lancaster. Needs work.”

  I looked at him and then turned back to Rainey. “Just to clarify. I didn’t get kicked off the force. I resigned. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Rainey, his mouth curled in a cruel way. “Something to do with a young girl.”

  I looked at him, and this was my turn to say nothing, allowing his comment to linger in the air like a bad smell.

  “Don’t blame you for not wanting to talk about it,” he finally mused.

  “I don’t want to talk about it because the accusations were blatantly false. Just like I’m sure you wouldn’t want to talk about certain unsavory parts of your background,” I retorted, starting to get irritable. “You ask me here just to trade barbs?”

  Rainey looked at me for a long moment. “Nope,” he finally said. “We got a tip that someone’s getting targeted tomorrow over in Playa Vista. I didn’t pay it much attention at first. If we deploy resources every time some joker calls into the tip line, we wouldn’t be doing anything else. Most of these tips go nowhere, usually it’s just someone mad at a spouse or a neighbor. But then our captain got a call from this Mexican guy at West L.A. Hey Joe, you remember who that cholo was?”

  Joe finished loading his handgun and placed it in his holster. “Uh-huh. Santo, I think.”

  “Roberto De Santo,” I corrected him. “He’s Filipino, but, yeah. And he’s a lieutenant.”

  “Whatever,” said Rainey. “I guess one of Santo’s snitches said the same thing. Guess that snitch was you.”

  I shook my head. Police departments everywhere rely on sources, good and bad, to collect info, usually after a
crime has occurred. Informants were called snitches, and usually got some money and maybe a favor to be called in later, in exchange for helping out in an investigation. But it was a little unusual that someone would tip off a crime that had yet to be committed. It was also unusual that I’d be referred to as a snitch, having served for thirteen years with the LAPD. And a final oddity was the casual racism. It exists everywhere, but it’s rarely overt, and rarer still, verbalized in front of a stranger. Paul Rainey was reminding me of some of the cops I used to work vice with in North Hollywood. That was a part of my past, and like much of my past, I did not miss it.

  “I’m a licensed PI and someone tried to hire me. Just as a lookout. But nothing about this seemed like it was on the up and up. So, I called it in to Lieutenant De Santo. Now I’m here.”

  “So you are. Who’s the guy that tried to hire you?”

  “Said his name was Ted Stoner. Not sure if it really is.”

  “He say what’s supposed to go down there?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Just wants to use me as a lookout. Said he’d pay me five grand.”

  Rainey looked at me. “You’ll be handing that over to us. Need it as evidence.”

  “Sure.”

  “This guy tell you how he got your name?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He mentioned there was a football connection.”

  “Football? How’s that?”

  “I used to coach at USC. Played there in college.”

  “What does that have to with anything?” he asked.

  “The owner of the business at this address was a USC football player a few years ago. He was there when I was coaching.”

  “Oh, yeah?” he said, eyes starting to widen. “Tell me about him.”

  “Name’s Cody Groh. Played in the NFL for a couple of years with the Chicago Bears. Very fast, very smart. What else you want to know?”

  “He have any enemies? A reason someone might want to take him out?”

  “Not that I know of,” I said. “Most everyone liked him. And I gather that likeability helped him get this business off the ground. Got a bunch of investors lined up when he was in Chicago. Company is called WAVE.”