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like he just woke up from a nap. So that's why I called you. I figured with you representing great athletes and all, this Remo Black might be a real dark horse for you."

Josephs was not convinced. "I'll watch him," he said. "Who's the chink?"

Mills said, "Korean, I think."

"What I said, a chink. Who's he?"

"He's this Remo's trainer or something. He's always around."

"A chink." Josephs shook his head in exasperation. "Mills, why are you wasting my frigging time on these people?"

"Watch him run," Mills said.

"I guess I got no choice," Josephs said, folding his arms and turning away. "But I think you ought to know that I got seven basketball contracts to negotiate and I'm working on a big deal for that dippy little gymnastic kid that everybody goes la-de-da about."

"But you ain't got a world champion," Mills said. "This guy could be one."

"Yeah, sure," Josephs said, but he decided to pay attention because Wally Mills was a good track coach and the truth was that the seven basketball players he represented, working together for a week, couldn't drop a basketball into an open manhole, and his deal for the little girl gymnast required him to figure out a way to make a pre-menstrual twelve-year-old look believable endorsing a special line of super-safe sanitary napkins, and the little broad was so dumb, it'd be another twelve years before she figured out what sanitary napkins were for.

Mills was right. He needed a world champion. A Mark Spitz. A Bruce Tenner. Somebody worth something, so he could package Mm right into that great golden tomorrow of cornflakes and mustache wax and men's clothes and you-name-it, all at a mere ten percent, sign here, kid, you'll never regret it.

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