The knock on the car window startles me into next week. But before I can even turn back for the door handle, I jolt out of my seat from the sudden pounding on glass and the blinding glare of a flashlight. Then I notice the badge. The assignment seemed intriguing enough, and considering the destination was one of the country's swankiest, sun-drenched resort areas, it certainly beat three days of shoveling snow in Cleveland. Find Art Modell and try to interview him, they said.
Exile is a relative term, of course.
For the Modells, supposedly at the door of the poorhouse, exile is a penthouse suite in Trump Plaza, two 30-story towers of condominiums and offices along the seawall in West Palm Beach. I'd like to say that locating Modell took every ounce of my skills as an investigative reporter. Actually, I just looked in the phone book. There's a phone number, too, the same one I'd been given by the Browns back when Modell was considered the most media-friendly owner in sports. All that changed on Nov. 6, obviously.