Amen Corner

By Pete Liebengood

A boy in his late teens with incredible vertical jumping skills is the first nonclone drafted by an International Football League team in fifteen years since the league converted to clones-only players in 2041. Orphaned at birth and raised by Catholic nuns, Patrick Caravan is coveted by the San Jose Routers for his potential for turning end zone fade routes into touchdowns. The resistance to a nonclone playing in the league is fierce and widespread. In addition to coping with instant celebrity and the disdain of nearly everyone in the game, young Caravan is obsessed with learning the identity of his real parents. That leads to a complicated extortion plot against the mother superior who raised him. Young Caravan fulfills his potential, triumphing with a leaping fade route catch that tops the scoring but, because of complications, doesnt win his team the Super Bowl.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524588243

Pete Liebengood

Pete Liebengood is a retired former TV sportscaster (KCRA-TV Sacramento, KRON-TV San Francisco) and play-by-play contributor to ESPN (college basketball, college football, boxing, and tennis). He is the author of four mystery/thriller books the latest of which is Rendez-Vu. Raised in Santa Barbara, California, he attended San Francisco State University. He was the cocreator of the first local TV news magazine at KCRA-TV and also produced AM San Francisco for KGO-TV. He presently lives with his wife, Alicia Aguirre, in Redwood City, California.

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PROLOGUE

Sister. Mary Beth Callahan had appeared anxious all morning, and it had nothing to do with the escape of her two maintenance robots the night before—they’d gone AWOL on several occasions in recent weeks, so that wasn’t a major shock to her system. They’re all replaceable was how she’d always gotten beyond their disobedience. Her robust cheeks were rosier than normal, and her snappier-than-usual demeanor was a clear indication that she was dealing with stress issues. Twice before midmorning tea, the Mother Superior of the Sisters of Chumash Catholic Convent had uncharacteristically berated two sisters for minor miscues: one for failure to attend group prayer on time—the sister was thirty seconds late—and the other for telling all thirteen sisters in the convent that she had just bought the book One Hundred Shades of Dark Grey and was willing to share it.

The convent was located just off Highway 154 in the picturesque Central California valley of Santa Ynez, which boasted of six small communities that were clustered together like wine grapes. Each had its fair share of horse ranches as well. The nearest big city, Santa Barbara, California, was located thirty-five miles to the west. Michael Jackson’s infamous Neverland, which was now a commune occupied by retired porn stars, was a stone’s throw from the convent. The physical building, made of adobe by the Chumash Indians centuries ago, was once used as the main manufacturing site for the tribe’s bead-making operations.

At the root of Sister’s edgy behavior was what had occurred shortly before six o’clock in the morning. She’d been awakened by the alarming sound of someone pounding on the convent’s front door. Since her room was the only one on the first floor, she was the first to rise and check out what could only be described as a vigorous announcement of somebody’s presence. There was no security at the convent—too much of an expense—and visitors were frequent but seldom before sunup.

Mary, Mother of God. Sister gasped after having opened the door. She placed her hand to her mouth in a failed attempt to smother the sound of her astonishment. At her feet lay a carefully bundled infant—only hours old, she guessed—fully wrapped in a blanket and stashed in an open FedEx box, which had been placed on the structure’s steps. There was a handwritten note attached to the box. Please love and care for our baby, it read. After placing the note in the pocket of her habit, she witnessed a red van speeding away from the convent’s distant parking lot.

As soon as she’d moved the boxed infant inside the convent, Sister Mary vigorously rang the dinner bell in an attempt to awaken all the sisters. One by one, the women reported to the main reception room in various forms of dress, from bathrobes to sweat outfits to habits in disarray. What is it? Sister Margaret asked, her voice sounding nervous.

Sister Callahan projected her deep, smoker’s laugh. It’s a child, and it’s apparently ours for the keeping. Sister placed her hands toward the heavens. There was a collective gasp from the gathered sisters. No word of any of this, Sister cautioned, canvassing the room with her piercing hazel eyes. Not until I figure out how this happened and who is responsible. The Mother Superior polled each of the sisters individually. She wanted to know if any of the women had any knowledge of the infant’s arrival in their care. The answers were all no.

Could a drone have dropped the infant off? Sister Elizabeth asked.

It’s possible. Drones can do anything these days, Sister. But I think I would have heard the noise.

The denials didn’t disturb Sister Callahan, but what happened shortly before the noon meal did. A well-dressed, strikingly beautiful blond woman, her hair shoulder length, who identified herself as a reporter for KEYT-TV News in Santa Barbara appeared at the front door to the convent, wanting to know about their special gift that arrived unexpectedly."

Sister Mary felt blindsided by the reporter’s appearance, along with her long haired cameraman, whom Sister would probably invite in for a bath under different circumstances. She struggled for the words to describe what had taken place. How … how did you find out about our gift from God? Sister Mary asked with a stern look on her face.

The reporter, who finally identified herself as Tiffany Crawford, said she’d received a tip from someone in the Santa Ynez Police Department, which was located only a few miles from the convent. We often do crime checks of the police departments in your area, and we just happened to luck out today.

Are you here for an interview? Sister Callahan asked.

Most definitely, Tiffany said with an expectant look on her face.

"That’s not going to happen, miss. I only address the media on religious matters. If you ever listened to Sister Sunday on KTMS radio, you’d know that’s my sole platform for discussing anything. It has to relate to God and our convent, nothing else."

Tiffany Crawford took a step back, batted her fake eyelashes, wiggled side to side, and said, Then we’ll just task Google Earth & Beyond with taking video of the property here and tell the story as we learned of it from the cops.

Sister Callahan started to walk back into the convent when she suddenly turned back to the reporter and spoke quietly. I’ll do an interview but not here. She swallowed at the clumsiness of what she was about to say. There’s a dive bar in the center of town. It’s called Sammy’s Joint. No one comes into it until midafternoon. The owner knows me, serves me Irish coffees on a regular basis.

Precisely at six o’clock that evening, Sister Callahan—complaining that she wasn’t feeling well—locked herself in what she called her suite, which was not much more than a big closet, and turned on the TV. She was relieved that the news headlines were slanted to national stories: Barron Trump throws his hat in the ring for Republican nomination for president, Disney Universe opens in Cuba, car battery charging stations outnumber gas stations, and Boeing’s Super Jet goes from LA to New York in an hour. Her story, she silently told herself, wasn’t that big of a deal.

Wrong. Tiffany Crawford had the lead local story and went so far as to identify the name the sisters had picked out for the child should he remain in their custody. They’ve decided to call him Patrick Caravan, Tiffany reported. If no one claims the baby boy and the Sisters of Chumash take him in permanently, that will become his name. This is a story that moves the heart. Tears were appearing in both her eyes. "I’m Tiffany Crawford, KEYT Action News Now."

CHAPTER ONE

It was the kind of morning-after that begged for Red Cross assistance. I’d slept maybe an hour. My head was pounding; my throat was cat scratch raw from too many Cuban cigars, and I felt guilty as hell because Sister. Mary Beth Callahan was passed out on my living room couch. I was accustomed to ladies spending the night, but a woman of the cloth?

Sister’s habit was severely wrinkled and so twisted about her stout frame that she looked like a rumpled bag of See’s candy. Customarily buck naked first thing in the morning—it was a guy thing—I conceded to covering strategic parts of myself with a Corona Light blanket. A quick survey of the evening’s damage produced four empty wine bottles, a half-eaten serving of caviar, a plate of asparagus rolantina scraps, and a fistful of wicked-smelling cigar stubs spread over both my coffee table and a sizable section of my new ivory-colored carpet. I was pretty certain that a half-empty fifth of Dewar’s scotch was MIA. Silently, I cursed myself for allowing the evening to get so out of control.

As wretched as I felt, I had to focus on Sister’s condition because it appeared far worse than mine, and we had precious little time before our flight from Santa Barbara to San Jose. I knelt next to where her head rested on a makeshift pillow of my old T-shirts and felt her wrist. Her pulse was surprisingly strong. Relieved, I placed a damp hand towel across her forehead and then spread over her shoulders a Go Notre Dame blanket, a treasure of mine from when the Fighting Irish once fielded decent football teams.

While performing those benign acts of compassion, I couldn’t help but reflect with both amusement and pride on how, just twelve hours earlier, this spirited convent leader, along with a renegade team owner who’d made his fortune in tattoo removals and me—Payne Holden, sports agent light and beach volleyball legend—had set the International Football League (IFL) on its ear.

Sister and I had viewed the historic moment live on ESPN 20 in the comfort of my entertainment center, which featured side-by-side one-hundred-inch screens and a Doppler sound system that could detect when someone on screen was swallowing. Neither of us would soon forget the bewildered look on the face of the league commissioner Elton Berringer as he made the announcement. Like the rest of the sports world, he hadn’t seen it coming.

With the first pick in the 2066 IFL draft, sponsored by You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet Fast-Actin’ Tinactin, the Cisco San Jose Routers select—the commissioner paused, cleared his throat, and then lowered his reading glasses over his nose; he fidgeted with a small note card before continuing—Patrick Caravan. It sounded more like a question than a statement. Berringer cleared his throat once again. Position … receiver … out of Sisters of Chumash, also known as SOC, and the Notre Dame School of Online Studies. The commissioner’s face turned the color of paste.

A vocal crowd of ten thousand, many displaying the colorful face paint of their favorite teams, had attended the draft at the Las Vegas Events Center of the Roman Coliseum Hotel. Enthusiasts representing all teams were on hand, but only Kaiser Permanente Raiders’ fans were required to pass through metal scanners before entering. With the announcement of Patrick’s name, the place fell deathly silent.

On ESPN 20’s coverage, neither Mel Shugart nor any of his colleagues said anything for what must have seemed like a week by broadcast standards. Finally, Shugart, who had a slicked-back hairstyle that suggested he shopped Jiffy Lube for product, spoke. I have never heard … I’m frankly shocked. I … ah, I honestly don’t know who this guy is or where he’s from. SOC? Is that a certified school of higher learning or something with which you cover your feet? We don’t have a graphic on him. Anybody on this panel have a clue? Shugart’s fellow experts failed him with their silence. The only thing I’m certain of, Shugart said filling the vacuum, "is that the guy is not a clone. Trust me. What the Routers have done here is an outrage. They’ve drafted the first nonclone in a decade and a half … since the Bigge Rule was implemented. If memory serves me right, Rafael Huerta-Ochoa, the kicker out of UNLV, was the last nonclone to be drafted by the Nikebok Portland Explorers, who took him with the last pick.

Excellent knowledge, Shug, said colleague Herman Alfonso, the ex–New Orleans Saints coach who only recently made the cover of Sports Illustrated in celebration of his 105th birthday.

As the moments passed, Shugart began to sweat through his makeup. It was clear he felt the pressure of the group of four to make sense of Patrick’s selection. I know this much, he said, addressing his colleagues over the camera. This nonclone selection is not going to go down well with the league’s owners. This is clearly a breach of the Bigge Rule. The other three panelists nodded partly in agreement and partly because they didn’t know what to add. I flat don’t get owner Rajnath Rajagopal’s thinking. Shugart continued. Everyone on the planet expected him to take Randall Sikes 1.4 with the first pick because of the Routers’ glaring need for a running back. Instead, he goes for the biggest unknown since the guy who threw the first forward pass.

While Shugart struggled to keep the draft telecast from derailing, a giant buzz in the events center began to generate. Everyone was confused by the pick. Mercifully, the commissioner was quick to push the agenda forward. The Allstate Cincinnati Bengals, with the second pick in the 2066 IFL draft, sponsored by Krispy Kreme Eating Emporiums, are now on the clock.

Even though every media person, friend, or relative—okay, my dad—who called only seconds after Patrick’s selection cautioned me that no one would get the last laugh on the IFL, still, I had no plans to run for cover. ’Didn’t want to miss the fun. Hell, a month earlier, I was ready to shut down my stalled-out sports talent agency and move to Mexico with my Jimmy Buffett’s classics playlist to search for the meaning of life through the butt end of a margarita glass. Now I suddenly found myself working for the hottest property in all of professional sports. Go figure.

Most everyone had a different view than me; none was shouted longer and louder than that of Ralph Bernstein, the evening-drive sports talk show host on KSJ San Jose. KSJ was a fifty-thousand-watt blowtorch, so Bernstein had a big following and plenty of clout in the Bay Area sports community. He also had an ego the size of Mars. The night of the draft, he went well out of his lane on the subject of Patrick Caravan. It was a radio Hall of Fame rant I retrieved from my Amazon Echo 10.0. You have to be careful what you ask Alexa for nowadays.

Nuns who wouldn’t know a curl route from a curling iron raised him. He has never been within light-years of an organized tackle football game. ‘The helmet goes on my head, right?’ he must wonder. He supposedly has a vertical leap of fifty-four inches, great for freeing wayward kites from power lines or kittens from tall trees, but how does that translate to life in the IFL? His bio says his jumping ability is the result of a lifetime of competitive jump roping. For sure, he’s never had to jump over a strong safety that was hell-bent on taking off his head. As a rule, white guys can’t jump over double-stacked milk cartons. ’Might want to test this boy. He reportedly ran a 5.2 forty for San Jose Routers’ talent evaluators. There are unoccupied Air Jordans with better numbers. But the biggest issue is that he isn’t a clone, and that jeopardizes the integrity of the game. The IFL took great pains to ensure the consistent excellence of its players by adopting cloning in an effort to stamp out excessive steroid use, which had become rampant within the league and the process of genetic splicing. Now this twenty-year old jumping jack, who still has acne issues, threatens to mess up years of progressive planning. What is Double R trying to pull with this pick? Prove that he’s the idiot everyone thought he was? He needs to be suspended for life for this move. I’ve heard rumors that Double R insisted on drafting jumping boy on the theory that the attendant publicity would serve as a marketing tool for his EX-OFF company that just so happened to suffer through its first ever financial losses this quarter. And the agent what’s-his-name, how does he plan on representing the number one pick in the draft when his best athlete-client to date is a beach volleyball player from Pismo Beach whose only endorsement is a some kind of see-through Band-Aid?

Not surprisingly, Bernstein never used his pulpit to welcome Patrick or me to the Bay Area. Not once.

CHAPTER TWO

If you didn’t count the two sets of tourists our driver nearly mowed down while crossing Cabrillo at the entrance to Stearns Wharf, the twenty-minute limo ride from my place to Santa Barbara’s municipal airport was uneventful. It’s the oil companies, our driver explained. So many ugly drilling platforms offshore. The tourists, they gawk while they walk. It’s not the Santa Barbara they’ve seen on the Internet. They slow down traffic. That gets me off schedule and takes money out of my pocket.

Patience is a virtue, Sister said, speaking for all of us.

Piss on it, the driver growled.

Shame, Sister shot back.

We arrived shortly before nine—Sister, Jennings Welch (Patrick’s longtime convent schoolmate), and me. Like Patrick, Jennings was orphaned—she was six when her parents were convicted of skimming money from a nonprofit called the Coastal Environmental Group. She was raised by the Chumash sisters after she’d been discovered looking for food in the convent’s Dumpster one morning. The sisters homeschooled Jennings and Patrick as well with an emphasis on mathematics (Sister Charlotte), history (Sister Madeline), and English composition (Sister Evonne).

The Routers, at Patrick’s insistence, invited Jennings—who was a year older than him—along for the trip. Her braided blond hair, sparkling blue eyes, and lightly bronzed skin said California girl in any language—no makeup, just youthful freshness. It was the consensus of a majority of the Chumash sisters that Jennings and Patrick were boyfriend and girlfriend—had been since they’d become teenagers. The theory was strongly rejected by Sister Callahan. There was to be no boy-girl coupling on her watch.

Sister and I, on the other hand, already felt and looked travel weary. Sister’s eyes were sunrise red, and I had bags under mine larger than my leather carry-on. Sister’s habit was still wrinkled and out of sorts. I told her she looked like a chocolate and vanilla swirl. She punched my arm over the remark.

Mercedes Marin, my immanently capable but seldom on-time assistant, was not curbside as promised. Her absence made my stomach churn. I desperately needed her along to help me with the media crunch that I anticipated.

It wasn’t until we reached security that Mercedes appeared, sprinting through the open-air terminal with the graceful yet purposeful stride of the elite athlete that she was. Mercedes had been my mixed doubles partner on the pro beach volleyball circuit. In ten years, together, we won eight world championships—six in succession. We split up after I decided to cut back my tournament schedule in favor of helping coach the men’s national team. My therapist maintained there was more to the breakup than I was willing to concede.

Sister waved Mercedes in our direction before quickly getting up in my grill. If you tell her or anyone about last night, I’ll see to it that you get face time with the devil, young man.

Tell what? That you tasted the grape as if you were taking Holy Communion for Catholics the world over?

Please tell me your excuse, Holden.

I was just trying to be a gracious host.

Sister did her best to repress a grin and then directed me to tip the security screener.

Our chartered plane was courtesy of the Routers. We were scheduled to appear with Patrick, Rajnath Rajagopal, GM Baker Sterling, and Coach Hammerin’ Harmon Heinrich, who was already on record as opposing Patrick’s selection at an 11:00 a.m. news conference at the team’s headquarters in Palo Alto. It was billed by Sterling as Patrick’s coming-out party. Since he was a surprise pick, he didn’t appear at the draft in Las Vegas along with the other top selections. Judging by the video e-mail and phone calls I’d received overnight, the news conference had the promise of a major media event with seemingly everyone in the country wanting to know why the equivalent of a college freshman with zero football experience, was worthy of the number one selection.

Baker Sterling—who, unlike most general managers, doubled as the Routers’ player personnel director and who discovered Patrick quite by accident, although he told the media differently—was the club’s only representative aboard his bosses’ private jet that picked us up. He apologized profusely for Rajagopal’s absence. In all the years I’ve worked for him, I’ve never known Double R to pull a no-show for something this important. I’m sure he had good reason, like someone in a skirt. Sterling laughed. Sister shook her head and mumbled something under her breath.

Sterling was a credible source when it came to his boss and longtime friend. According to Mercedes, who researched the Routers’ ownership thoroughly for me, Sterling and Double R, who was the only son of a Pakistani immigrant turned Silicon Valley billionaire (business software), met while attending UC Berkeley. Together, they served three years as student managers of Cal’s football team. It was during that time they fostered dreams of operating their own IFL team. Double R could have done it with his daddy’s money but chose to do it his way. With Sterling leading cheers before investors, Double R raised the cash to develop EX-OFF, a shopping-mall-based chain of laser tattoo removal parlors. The trendy-looking salons targeted young people wanting to zap the memory of ex-loves from their flesh in a single treatment.

Five years after taking EX-OFF public, Double R was hailed by Forbes as one of the top ten entrepreneurial giants of the quarter century. In slightly less than ten years, with 4,850 locations throughout the country, Double R had become a millionaire many times over. His riches enabled him to land the San Jose franchise expansion two years ago. Sterling served his buddy as point man on all things Routers.

Physically, Sterling appeared miscast as a football guy. He was short with thinning black hair that he combed to one side to cover a bald patch; he had narrow brown eyes, street-sweeper-sized eyebrows, and a chin that rolled to his neck like an ocean wave. The Routers’ media guide listed him as forty-two. I wasn’t sure whether that was his age or his waistline.

This morning, his nice meter was pegged as he directed the boarding process like a newly graduated flight attendant, offering us mimosas and ham crescents with melted Brie. He’d even thought of sparkling cider for Jennings. I suspected there were a couple of reasons for his pleasant demeanor: (1) he knew Sister and I were pissed at him, and (2) Mercedes was present. She customarily brought out the charm in men and, more often than not, the hustle. Among the beach volleyball crowd, she was affectionately known as T-Babe for tall, trim, toned, and tan.

During breaks in our initial contract-negotiating session several days earlier, Sterling had fallen all over himself in trying to impress Mercedes, showing her pictures of his twelve-thousand-square-foot home in Maui and his luxurious sailboat docked at the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco. During one intermission, Sterling said to me, I can see her as my Mexican mistress. We’d sail the Sea of Cortez together. She’d be sucking my knob as I steered the boat with one hand and pounded tequila shooters with the other. Then he asked me about Mercedes’s availability.

You’re asking the wrong guy. We date—a lie.

Sterling flinched as though he’d been caught stealing cookies. Technically, I’m still married. Delia, ya know, I think you’ve met her. Getting a little ahead of myself, I guess.

Never hurts to look.

Sister wasn’t swayed by Sterling’s congeniality. Our lavishly appointed jet hadn’t yet cleared the runway when Sister’s tightly throttled Irish reached altitude. As she spoke, her ample cheeks pulsed fire-engine red. I wondered silently if it wouldn’t be wise to pop her oxygen mask, just in case. I ought to make you toss in another $20 million on his signing bonus, Sterling, Sister said, pointing her finger at Sterling’s nose. Make it $120 million over five years. Are you taking notes, Holden?

I smiled as Sister continued venting. You don’t know the grief you caused the sisters and me, Sterling, stealing our boy in the middle of the night while we were away on a retreat. One of the sheriff’s deputies called it a commando raid of all things. And poor Jennings here, she’s still traumatized from witnessing her only schoolmate and best friend get taken away in a helicopter by men dressed like soldiers.

Sterling’s lips puckered. You have to trust our reasoning. He paused to beat the perspiration from his upper lip with a napkin. Our intelligence coordinator, Stuart Goldman—who has Israeli army credentials, by the way—had warned us that one, possibly two teams had knowledge that we’d worked out a mystery prospect. If you recall, when I visited your winery and discovered Patrick jumping rope in the parking lot, my estranged wife was with me. She witnessed the workout too, and she would do—

I’m sorry to hear that, Sister said, "about you and your lovely wife having difficulties. I remember her. She is very pretty. Delia, isn’t it? She’s

Rajagopal’s sister, I believe I was told?"

Sterling squirmed in his seat. Anyway—Sterling continued—Stuart strongly recommended that we put Patrick on ice until the day of the draft. And he didn’t want anyone to know where we were stashing him, particularly you, Sister.

Sister wrinkled her nose. But, Sterling, you had the first pick. Why should you care what the others did or didn’t know?

Simple, Sister. Rajnath and I were afraid someone from league security might want to harm Patrick if they’d gotten wind of our plans.

Like?

Like making sure he suffered a career-ending injury before the draft.

Such as?

I don’t want to get too graphic, Sister. But there are ways to limit his jumping ability.

How?

"Break his