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same thing when he gave me the phone. You must have realized, though, that there was a chance it would get out at some point.”
    “We figured. But Frankie was in rookie ball. We had nothing to lose.”
    “So why make the film at all?”
    The widow raises her brow. “What’s that expression? Young, dumb, and full of …?”
    I think back to when I was in rookie ball. Ginny and I were newly married, living in a one-bedroom shit trap in Tucson. It was 110 degrees outside, and the window-unit A/C in our apartment worked only for about ten minutes before it blew the circuit. We used to go to department stores and screw our brains out in the dressing rooms. We did it in a public bus once, too. But that was a more innocent time. People weren’t packing video cameras on their cell phones back then.
    “Watch the video,” she says. It seems like she is going to say more on the subject—she opens and closes her mouth a couple of times—but then she says, totally straight, “You’re a good man, Adcock.”
    “With all due respect, Mrs. Herrera, you don’t know that.”
    “Frankie said if the league were filled with guys like you it would be a much more civilized place.”
    “He said that?”
    “He did.”
    “Well, that was a nice thing to say.”
    “Yeah, Frankie surprised me sometimes with his niceness.” I notice for the first time the way the widow’s chest presses against the inside of her blouse, stretching the fabric so you can see her bra in the space between the buttons. I can’t help wondering what she looks like without clothes. Nude, as Bethany would say. It seems I’ll find out soon enough.
    “I’ll call when I have news,” I say. “What’s the best number to reach you?”
    “You have Frankie’s phone,” she says. “Let’s hope my number is in there.”
    “Let’s hope,” I say. I show her out and close the door, and I do not watch her little half-moon ass sway down the hall through the peephole. I promise I do not.

8
    So much for sleep. I dial a cappuccino from the machine on my kitchen counter. The device cost me two grand, but it is hardly an indulgence. I would sooner give up my bed. Use it often enough, you don’t even need a bed. To be fair, the brew is not as good as they make in the café downstairs, but the convenience is worth it. This I can drink in my underwear.
    While watching a dead teammate’s wife have sex.
    I prop the phone on the kitchen table, sip my coffee, and settle in. When the film begins, a young Maria Herrera is in someone’s living room, looking at the camera over one shoulder and then the other, kissy kissy. Her hair is dyed black, which makes her complexion look lighter than it appears in person. She is also younger, of course, but otherwise she’s the same woman who was just standing in my front hall. She curls her finger to beckon someone from behind the camera—the film has a kind of shaky, grainy, home-movie conceit. A man in a red nylon tracksuit walks into the frame. However, the shot is set up so that his face is not visible. You can see that he is black, muscular, somewhat overweight. Reminds me of the ballplayer Prince Fielder. When Maria Herrera stands before him, you see that he is at least a foot taller and probably outweighs her three to one. She looks up at him, takes hold of the zipperon his jacket, pulls it down. Same with his pants. His endowment is as large as you would expect. The widow kneels down, and the camera comes in for a close-up. After five minutes of polishing the pole, she stands and walks over to an overstuffed leather armchair. She removes her tank top, licks her nipples like ice-cream cones, moons for the camera. She removes her shorts and drapes herself across the chair, legs akimbo. The Prince of Power (back turned to the camera) crouches down between her thighs. She looks down and says in a cloying, girlish voice, “I’ve never done this before.” I laugh in spite of myself. “Don’t worry, baby,” the Prince says,