"Nice to meet you," said TJ, shaking her hand. It didn't seem like any of my words had landed. He took a hit of wine and stared at nothing.
The light from the laptop was still shining, so I clicked it closed.
"The famous laptop," said TJ, as though his throat hurt.
"What's famous about it?" asked Briggy.
"It's got Max's artificial intelligence software on it. It tells him everything he needs to know about football."
I scratched my temple because I wasn't sure if he was being serious. The AI story was just a cover, a way of explaining my supernatural gifts, but it was a story I had been expanding in recent months. I had even set up a company that pretended to offer the software's insights to football clubs. In truth, its customers were all clubs I had a personal interest in and I had no intention of ever offering my services to third parties on an ongoing basis. I was already stretched thin.
TJ's remark about the laptop was very, very odd. Early in our relationship I had gone down to Crawley for a week to help him prepare for a must-win game; I hadn't used my laptop once. All it had were a few spreadsheets, some movies, and an app that showed a lot of wavy lines and numbers going up. That was my 'proprietary AI'.
Just as I had gone internal to puzzle out his comment, so TJ had gone back inside his own mind.
"You okay, bro?" I said.
He closed his eyes and made a big effort to become present in the room. "At least I have the honour of being part of your winning streak. It's a record, isn't it?"
"Nine wins in a row? I don't think that's a record, no. I'm not really interested in the streak. I need to get loads of points on the board before - " I glanced at Briggy. She knew that I had been asked to take over the biggest club in Germany for a few weeks while their current manager had heart surgery, but she didn't know when. I changed horses mid-stream, so smoothly TJ didn't notice. "I need to get points on the board before the January transfer window."
"Oh," said TJ. He perked up. Actually sat up straighter.
The move caught Briggy's attention. She asked a question. "What does that mean?"
"Football clubs can trade players in two windows," I said. "There's a big one in the summer and a little one in January. Today, a failing club like Crawley Town has to make do with the players it already has. I mean, it can take a rando off the street but most players who are useful are under contract with clubs such as Chester. We hold their registration for the duration of their contract but can trade it inside one of the windows. Take Lee Contreras, for example. He was playing for us today but come January, he could be playing for Crawley. Did you see him? He was the guy in blue-and-white wearing shirt number 8. He plays in midfield, that's as it sounds, the middle, and what he did today is commonly called bossing the midfield."
"Lee Contreras was bossing the midfield," said Briggy.
"That's right. In this role you'll hear people talk a lot about transfers. That's when a failing club, say Crawley Town, improve their team by buying a player who is better than the ones they have already got. For example, they buy Lee Contreras from Chester for a transfer fee of five hundred thousand pounds. They're not buying the person, that would be sick. They're buying the registration that allows him to play in professional matches."
"Does the buying team need to be failing?" said Briggy.
"Ah. I see I'll have to be more precise with my language around you. No, I only said that to rinse TJ. I could buy one of his players, too, if I wanted. Which I don't."
"You're not failing?" said Briggy.
"No. We're top of the league by six points, which at this stage of the season is mental. We have won eleven of thirteen. We're absolutely amazing but because of our poverty we will have to break up this wonderteam, this marvellous mannschaft."
"Hold up," said TJ, who had been watching us talk. "Are you trying to sell Lee Contreras? Now? Can't you give me a minute to lick my wounds?"
"What wounds?" I said, smiling. "You lost to the best team in the league. There's no shame in that. Those fans getting on those buses for the four-hour drive home? They knew this would happen. They're probably saying you did well to restrict us to two goals."
He rubbed his forehead so hard he was leaving dents. "Yeah, they're probably all singing my name right now."
"You know what you need, Timo? You need an intervention."
"Oh, Christ." He rubbed his head harder. "Fuck this, I'm leaving." He made no move to get up; I poured more wine into his glass. "Where is Emma?"
"Briggy? Where's Emma?"