Page 1 of The House of Wolves

One

ALONE ON HIS BOATand half drunk, the Golden Gate Bridge off to his left and Alcatraz dead ahead, Joe Wolf started to sing about having left his heart in San Francisco.

Then he suddenly threw back his head and laughed, remembering the last time he’d belted out the song, with his second wife out here onThe Sea Wolf,both of them knowing the marriage was over.

“Whatheart?” she’d said.

Oh, he had heart, all right, and brains and balls to go with it. How did she think he ended up with his own football team and his own newspaper—by winning the goddamn lottery? He apologized to nobody, not even for the deals he’d had to cut to get what he wanted, especially when he felt, as he did tonight, as if he owned the whole city.

Did he have secrets? Who the hell didn’t have secrets? And regrets. He never talked about his biggest secret, but his biggest regret was his family. It was the way his three sons had turned out, the way they’d disappointed him. His fault? Or theirs?

Then there was his only daughter.

She was the best of them, the rising star of the family. Only she’d turned her back on him. And in that way became the biggest disappointment of all.

“I’m not like the rest of you!” she’d said the last time they fought.

Was that fight earlier this year or last year? There were so many he’d lost track. But that was when she told him she was walking away for good, and she meant it this time.

No,he thought.You were supposed to be better.

He drank Grey Goose out of the bottle. The good stuff. But worth it because he was.

Hardly any wind tonight, though. No other boats anywhere in sight, just the smell of the water and the occasional screech of California gulls, the night shining with starlight—bright enough, Joe Wolf thought, to light Wolves Stadium.

Hisstadium, even if it was too old now, the way they said he was.

He raised the bottle to his lips, realized it was empty, was about to go below and open another one when he heard a noise behind him.

Turned and saw who was standing there.

Shit.

Had to have been hiding below when Joe boarded.

“You?” Joe Wolf said.

“Me.”

“What the hell do you want?”

“To ask you a question.”

“So ask.”

“Simple question, really.”

“From you or him?”

“It doesn’t really matter.”

“Then get to it already,” Joe Wolf said. “I’m not getting any younger.”

“Did you think we’d wait forever for you to give up?”

“That’s it? You came all the way out here to ask me a question you should already know the answer to?”

“Pretty much.”