Page 22 of Lion & Lamb

Excerpt from Cooper Lamb’s interview with tight end Jimmy Tua

COOPER LAMB: I’m really sorry for your loss. Everybody is telling me how close you were to Archie. To the entire Hughes family, for that matter.

JIMMY TUA: Yeah, thanks. I still can’t believe it’s real. Feel like I’m walking around in a dream these days. The world’s worst dream.

LAMB: Since you were all so tight, I wanted to talk to you about the gossip flying around about Francine.

TUA: (Angry) What gossip?

LAMB: Everyone always points a finger at the spouse.

TUA: Someone points a finger at that beautiful woman and I’ll snap it off and make ’imeat it,you feel me?

LAMB: Easy, my friend. I’m on her side!

[Cooper Lamb’s handwritten annotation:Tua—big guy. Built like a side of beef. AVOID BEING PUNCHED BY THIS MAN. Unlike the other players, Tua seems truly close with the Hughes family. Especially Francine.]

Chapter17

1:14 p.m.

“HOW’D ITgo with the team?”

“It was just like a football game,” Cooper said. “Lots of waiting, and I feel like I’ve taken a series of blows to the head. Did you get what you need from the front office?”

Victor was scrubbing his hands with a disinfectant wipe. His motions were thorough and meticulous, as if he were prepping for surgery. Cooper’s assistant was borderline OCD when it came to leaving zero physical traces behind.

“Yeah, I had plenty of time before the Sables came back. Speaking of—that’s them over there.”

Across the broad green field, a lean, tall man was huddled with two obese men who looked like unmade beds. The latter were Harold and Glenn Sable, the father-and-son owners of the Philadelphia Eagles. They carried themselves like a pair of feudal lords watching over their knights, vassals, and peasants as they made furious preparations for war.

The tall man approached. Cooper knew him by sight, the handsome bastard. Enter homicide royalty, Detective Mickey Bernstein.

“The Sables seem awful chummy with the homicide dick,” Cooper said to Victor.

“What do you mean?”

“Look at them all,” Cooper said with disgust. “Laughing and backslapping. Does Detective Mickey look like a man hell-bent on finding the killer of the greatest quarterback ever?”

“I don’t know, Cooper. You’re the one who’s good at reading people. All I know is, whatever their deal, we’ll know a lot more by the end of the day.”

Cooper turned to face Victor and clutched at nonexistent pearls in mock horror. “My God, Victor! Please tell me you didn’t do something…illegal?”

“I’ve got their offices and reception areas fully wired for sound. Oh, I wired up their matching convertible Rolls-Royce Dawns, too. Even if these guys had someone doing routine security sweeps—and by the way, I checked their financial records, and they don’t—”

“Nobody will be able to spot your bugs,” Cooper finished. “Excellent work, as always.”

Victor shrugged, which was about as close as the man came to accepting a compliment.

“Now, let’s see if I can rattle these big boys a little,” Cooper said.

“I’ll let you know.”

Chapter18

Transcript of Cooper Lamb’s interview with longtime Philadelphia Eagles owners Harold Sable (age seventy-one) and Glenn Sable (age forty-eight)

COOPER LAMB: First of all, let me tell you both how sorry I am for your loss.

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