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man who considered K mart velour sweatsuits haute couture. Frank had calmed down over the last few years, but it never quite worked for him. Life, it seemed, had little meaning for Frank Senior without someone to torture or maim.
    “What do you want, FJ?”
    “I have a business proposition for you.”
    “Gee, I just know this is really going to interest me.”
    “I want to buy you out.”
    The Aches ran TruPro, a rather large sports representation firm. TruPro had always been devoid of any semblance of scruples, recruiting young athletes with as much moral restraint as a politician planning a fund-raiser. But then their owner stacked up debts. Bad debts. The debts that attract the wrong kind of fungus. The appropriately named Ache brothers, the fungi in question, moved in and, like the parasitic entities they were, ate away all signs of life and were now gnawing on the carcass.
    Still, being a sports agent was a legit way of making a living, sort of, and Frank Senior, wanting for his son what all fathers wanted, handed young FJ the reins straight out of business school. In theory FJ was supposed to run TruPro as legitimately as possible. His father had killed and maimed so that his son wouldn’t have to—yep, the classic American dream with, granted, a rather deranged twist. But FJ seemed incapable of freeing himself from the old familial shackles.
Why
was a question that fascinated Myron. Was FJ’s evil genetic, passed down from his father like a prominent nose, or was he, like so many other children, simply trying to gain his father’s acceptance by proving the acorn could be as ferociously psychotic as the oak?
    Nature or nurture. The argument rages on.
    “MB SportsReps is not for sale,” Myron said.
    “I think you’re being foolish.”
    Myron nodded. “I’ll file that under ‘One Day I Might Even Care.’”
    The Bookends sort of grumbled, took a step forward, and cracked their necks in unison. Myron pointed to one, then the other. “Who does your choreography?”
    They wanted to be insulted—you could just tell—except neither one of them knew what the word
choreography
meant.
    FJ asked, “Do you know how many clients MB SportsReps lost in the last few weeks?”
    “A lot?”
    “I’d say a quarter of your list. A couple of them went with us.”
    Myron whistled, feigned nonchalant, but he was not happy to hear this. “I’ll get them back.”
    “You think so?” FJ again smiled the reptilian smile; Myron almost expected a forked tongue to dart out between his lips. “Do you know how many more are going to leave when they hear about Esperanza’s arrest?”
    “A lot?”
    “You’ll be lucky to have one left.”
    “Hey, then I’ll be like Jerry Maguire. Did you see that movie? Show me the money? I love black people?” Myron gave FJ his best Tom Cruise earnest. “You. Complete. Me.”
    FJ remained cool. “I’m willing to be generous, Myron.”
    “I’m sure you are, FJ, but the answer is still no.”
    “I don’t care how clean your rep used to be. Nobody can survive the sort of money scandal you’re about to go through.”
    It wasn’t a money scandal, but Myron was not in the mood to issue corrections. “Are we finished, FJ?”
    “Sure.” FJ gave him one last scaly smile. The smile seemed to jump off his face, crawl toward Myron, and then slither its way up his back. “But why don’t we get together and have lunch?”
    “Any time,” Myron said. “You have a cellular?”
    “Of course.”
    “Call my partner right away and set it up.”
    “Isn’t she in jail?”
    Myron snapped his fingers. “Drat.”
    FJ found that amusing. “I mentioned that some of your old clients are now using my services.”
    “So you did.”
    “If you contact any of them”—he paused, thought it over—“I’d feel obliged to retaliate. Do I make myself clear?”
    FJ was maybe twenty-five years old, less than a year out of Harvard Business School. He had gone undergrad to Princeton. Smart kid. Or