Coach Bobby said, "What?"

"Do you know who this guy is?"

"Who?"

"Myron Bolitar."

You could see Coach Bobby working the name, as if his forehead had a window and the squirrel running on the little track was picking up speed. When the synapses stopped firing, Coach Bobby's grin practically ripped the boy-band goatee at the corners.

"That big 'superstar'"-he actually made quotation marks with his fingers-"who couldn't hack it in the pros? The world-famous first-round bust?"

"The very one," Assistant Coach Pat added.

"Now I get it."

"Hey, Coach Bobby?" I said.

"What?"

"Just leave the kid alone."

The brow thickened. "You don't want to mess with me," he said.

"You're right. I don't. I want you to leave the kid alone."

"Not a chance, pal." He smiled and moved a little closer to me. "You got a problem with that?"

"I do, very much."

"So how about you and me discuss this further after the game? Privately?"

Flares started lighting up my veins. "Are you challenging me to a fight?"

"Yep. Unless, of course, you're chicken. Are you chicken?"

"I'm not chicken," I said.

Sometimes I'm good with the snappy comebacks. Try to keep up.

"I got a game to coach. But then you and me, we settle this. You got me?"

"Got you," I said.

Again with the snappy. I'm on a roll.

Coach Bobby put his finger in my face. I debated biting it off-that always gets a man's attention. "You're a dead man, Bolitar. You hear me? A dead man."

"A deaf man?" I said.

"A dead man."

"Oh, good, because if I were a deaf man, I wouldn't be able to hear you. Come to think of it, if I were a dead man, I wouldn't be able to either."

The horn sounded. Assistant Coach Pat said, "Come on, Bobby."