Free Grandmaster by David Klass

know exactly how she’ll fit in,” she admitted, sounding a little worried.
    “What’s the matter?” I asked.
    “Nothing,” she said quickly. She hesitated and then added: “My mom’s been through a rough time, and she’s a bit of a character, but I guess all parents are, right?”
    “Absolutely,” I assured her. “My dad is short, bald, and the poorest father at Loon Lake. Believe me, if I can bring him on this trip, you shouldn’t have any worries about your mom.”
    Britney flashed a grateful smile. “You don’t take yourself too seriously. That’s kind of a rare thing at our school.”
    “If I took myself too seriously, I’d be disappointed,” I told her with a grin. “But seriously, if your mom raised you, I’m sure she must be pretty cool.”
    “She is,” Britney agreed in a low voice. “Thank you…”
    “What are you two whispering about?” a voice demanded.
    I whirled around to see that Brad had finished his hundred laps, climbed out of the pool, and was toweling off just a few feet from us.
    “Nothing,” I said. “I was just wondering how you can swim so many laps without slowing down.”
    “This was nothing,” Brad told me, as if his usual workouts were twice as hard. Then he turned to Britney. “Did you get my time, baby?”
    She looked down at the stopwatch. It was still running. She clicked it off. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I got distracted…”
    “Yeah, well, I’m sorry, too,” Brad growled. “Without a time, it’s useless. I just wasted half an hour of training.”
    “You were really swimming fast,” I told him.
    Brad glared at me. “Did anybody invite you to speak?”
    “No,” I admitted.
    “Then make yourself scarce, Patzer-face.” He turned back to Britney. “I’m going to swim twenty laps of backstroke. Make sure you clock it to the second.”

 
    13
     
    “So you’re a bean counter, Morris?” Randolph Kinney said, taking a gulp from his gin martini and wrapping his tongue around an olive like an octopus seizing a small fish with its tentacle. Everyone but me had won, so the Mind Cripplers had posted five points in the first round and our host was in a genial mood. “What firm are you at?”
    “Just a small outfit in Jersey,” my father replied, taking a sip from his glass of tomato juice.
    We were standing at the bar of the Patagonia Steakhouse in a fashionable downtown section of Manhattan called Tribeca. The lighting was dim, the portions looked huge, and the high-ceilinged space was packed with diners even though it was past nine. Eric and Brad were chatting on cell phones, drawing dirty looks from other patrons at the bar. From what I overheard, Eric was browbeating his lab partner about a big project due next week, while Brad was making plans with Britney for Saturday night.
    I was standing next to my dad, sipping a ginger ale and wondering if I should jump into the adult conversation and try to rescue him. “So what’s the name of your small firm?” Randolph pressed. “I do lots of work with bean counters in Jersey. I’m sure I’ve heard of you guys.”
    “Haug and Gilooly,” my father said.
    “Haug and Gilooly,” Randolph repeated, making the names sound even sillier than normal. “Never heard of it. Must be really small.”
    “Sounds like Howdy Doody,” Dr. Chisolm contributed, well into his second large glass of red wine. “But all those bean counters have silly names.”
    My father smiled at him. “So you’re a sawbones?”
    Dr. Chisolm’s eyes narrowed. I don’t think anyone had referred to him as a sawbones in a while. “I’m Chief of Cardiac Surgery at Hackensack Hospital.”
    “I’m kind of surprised to see you at a steak house,” Dad said. “You must know more about cholesterol than any of us. Doesn’t slicing into a rare steak make you think of the operating table?”
    “I did become a vegetarian for a while during my residency,” Dr. Chisolm admitted. “But I can handle it now. You just have to