Chapter 1
IT WAS SEVEN thirty on a Tuesday morning, and I was fighting for my life. Sam, my best friend and current racquetball partner, and I were in a dead heat with our usual opponents, Rob and Will. We’d won the first game, they’d won the second, and this game would be the tiebreaker. Finally, Sam and I summoned a surge of energy from somewhere and made the crucial point. After shaking hands all around, the four of us went to the locker-room. We had a standing reservation for an indoor court at the Y on Riverside Avenue every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at the same time. If one of us was for any reason unable to participate, he was honor bound to come up with a substitute, which had happened more than a few times during the three years we’d been playing together.
As was our custo
