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self-indulgent since the attack, wrapped up in feeling sorry for himself.
    Honestly, he was scared. As long as he didn’t really try to recover there was always the flicker of hope that if he just applied himself he could reclaim his career. But what if he tried his best to make a comeback and failed?
    What then?
    Rowdy started to argue about the weights, but something on television caught his eye. A leggy female reporter was interviewing Dugan Potts on the field at Gunslinger Stadium. He jerked upright, grabbed for the remote, and cranked the volume.
    The reporter asked Potts why he had unexpectedly cut the pitcher he’d signed to replace Rowdy.
    “Because that’s what the asshole does,” Rowdy hollered at the TV. “He’s enjoys plowing over people.”
    Potts glowered at the reporter. “Zero tolerance. That’s my policy. No more shenanigans like what Blanton pulled last season. Everyone is on notice. My way or the highway.”
    “Hey.” Warwick nudged him in the shoulder with his elbow. “He mentioned your name. I think he still has a crush on you.”
    “Bite me.”
    On screen, a man walked up to Potts and whispered something into the general manager’s ear.
    Rowdy’s gaze shifted to the newcomer. The guy was six-one, two hundred pounds, give or take. Swarthy skin. Thick black hair. Demon black eyes, and . . .
    A striking cobra tattooed on his right forearm.
    His blood froze in his veins. No way.
    It was the same guy who’d ambushed him outside the Dallas nightclub Push, on New Year’s Eve. Rowdy knew it as surely as he knew his date of birth. His heart slammed against his chest, and with each pump of blood his left arm throbbed from his shoulder all the way down to his fingertips.
    In a flash, he was back in the alley of his recurring nightmare. He smelled the rotting garbage. Felt beer bottle shards cutting into his back, and the bat hitting his left side again and again. Tasted cold, bitter fear. Saw the cobra strike. Heard the wood crack.
    He’d gotten only a fleeting glance of the man’s face before the assailant sprinted off into the darkness, but he could identify that awful tattoo anywhere. It would haunt him for the rest of his days.
    A sick feeling rolled over him, and for a moment the water and coffee threatened to come back up. The camera cut away from Potts and his henchman, panned back to the reporter, who wrapped up the story as the network went to commercial.
    Rowdy grabbed Warwick’s arm. “Did you see the guy just now? The one that came up to Potts?”
    “Yeah.”
    “It’s him.”
    “Who?”
    “Louisville Slugger. I swear it’s him. You saw the guy. Validate me.”
    “I barely caught a glimpse of your attacker as he was running away. In the dark. I might add that if you hadn’t tried to give me the slip to meet up with some groupie—”
    “I’m telling you it’s him.”
    Warwick’s shrug said, You’re reaching, but I’ll indulge you. “He’s the same build, same hair color, same approximate age. I suppose it’s possible, but that description fits hundreds of thousands of men.”
    “It’s the same tattoo.”
    Warwick ran a palm up the nape of his neck, let out a long breath. “A lot of guys have snake tattoos on their forearms.”
    “It’s the guy, and I’m certain Potts hired him to attack me.”
    “That’s a quantum leap. Even if he’s the guy, and he works for Potts, that still doesn’t mean Potts hired him to attack you.”
    Rowdy stared at his best friend, incredulous. “You think it’s just coincidence?”
    “Okay, I admit it smells fishy, but why would Potts hire someone to beat you?”
    “To get even with me for publicly humiliating him, and to give him a real excuse to cut me from the team. He could only stretch my suspension so far. Potts was hell-bent on getting rid of me.”
    Warwick’s head shifted left to right, and back again in measured increments.
    “Potts is a lot of things, but if he hired someone to beat you, he crossed a line that I