Free Everything on the Line by Bob Mitchell Page A

you are a lefty, a sinister, shady character to be feared!”
    Jack nods and, knowing his father, awaits the final wave of the diatribe.
    “And finally,” Ira says, dotting the last i , “no one likes to play a lefty. No one. Because lefties are smart and lefties are clever and lefties are crafty and cunning and dangerous and devious. Just think of past tennis champions like Drobny, Fraser, Laver, Leconte, Connors, Vilas, Korda, and Nadal. Nobody in their right mind enjoyed playing these guys. In baseball, they used to call certain pitchers ‘cute’ lefties, because they were wily and sneaky and, well, cute :Roe, Podres, Shantz, Haddix, Glavine, Pettitte…”
    Ira and Jack get back to work for another ten minutes. While Jack scraps, digs, gets dirty, and sacrifices his body for the greater good, his father chews his mental cud.
    As he runs his son silly, Ira Spade is in his own little thought balloon cogitating about how he’s got this tennis tiger by the tail and he’ll never ever let go and how great this talent is and how much greater he’s gonna get and how he knows in his gut that this kid is gonna be better than Tilden and Budge and Vines and Kramer and Gonzalez and Hoad and Laver and Borg and Connors and McEnroe and Sampras and Federer and Nadal and both Agassis and anyone else before and the sky’s the limit and how he gets to shape the kid and mold him and now he sees images of himself, Ira Spade, his own head with the Groucho-Nose-and-Specs mask pasted onto Jack’s body, this middle-aged man’s head stuck onto the strong, young, lithe, fit body that was the fruit of his loins when his loins produced fruit, and Ira’s head on top of Jack’s body is running opponents ragged and hoisting trophies aloft and appearing on nighttime TV shows and breaking bread with presidents and premiers and prime ministers and… kings!
    * * *
    Short, fat, bald, chinless Odi Mondheim is seated across from Ira Spade in a booth in TooJay’s gourmet deli on PGA Blvd. His lips are wrapped around two slices of soft, gorgeous seedless Jewish rye inside of which are piled a full 4.6 inches of an oversize, overstuffed sandwich interior comprised of equal heapings of thinly cut, lean pastrami and spicy corned beef.
    Odi’s ghastly yellow teeth take an acquisitive chomp out of the savory mélange, the savage thrust leaving behind it an awesome wake that includes a sliver of pastrami dangling from the left corner of his mouth and a dollop of mustard smudging his left cheek.
    “Ymmmm…mis samich z fugn X slnt!” Odi mumbles mid chew.
    “Mmmmm,” Ira agrees, biting deeply into his Reuben. “I wuv cumnere.”
    Odi licks a small clump of Gulden’s spicy brown mustard off his pudgy thumb, and, washing down the mouthful of lipid ambrosia with a swig of Dr. Brown’s Celray Tonic, he contorts his moist lips into a Dick Cheney sneer.
    “Ira, listen up,” Odi begins, parking his sandwich on his plate and rubbing his hands together in an unctuous Uriah Heep gesture. “I been thinking about a possible new deal with Nike.”
    Ira Spade’s left eye twitches furiously.
    “They love your kid, y’know. So I’m gonna meet with them next week and present a whole PR program that’ll knock their socks off. We’re gonna call it ‘Operation Net Profits.’”
    Ira contorts his own moist lips into a Dick Cheney sneer.
    “I been thinking about this night and day, 24/7,” Odi says. “I’m sure that, with some creativity and elbow grease, we could make ourselves another sweetheart of a deal that would whip up plenty more excitement around Jack and his persona.”
    Uriah rubs his hands together again.
    “Fr’instance?” Ira asks.
    “Fr’instance, we’ll make Jack as intimidating as possible. Their marketing people’ll love that. Dress him all in black, as we’ve discussed. Start a line of clothes we’ll call ‘Nike Black Jack Apparel.’ Start a blog called ‘Black Jack Smack.’ Maybe even design a black cape for him to wear