Chapter Four
The front of Kent’s Gym was a huge plate-glass window with treadmills and cross-trainers lined up so the whole world could admire the sweaty backsides of everyone using them. The ambiance was chilly and loud, overrun with a post-work-hours crowd that was busy flexing and extending its way to better health on various weight machines. ESPN and MTV competed on two TV sets. In the free weights section, a radio played head-banging music, and a man doing bench presses grunted so loudly with each rep, you would have thought he was giving birth.
I had no idea what Schaeffer looked like, so I asked a young girl reading at the front desk whether he was there. “Wow, he’s popular tonight,” she said. She had short, spiky black hair and marble green eyes, which did a quick sweep around th
