The Franchise (27 page)

Willie never did get his money.

T
AYLOR CAME TO
the team offices to meet with Red and pick up the offensive plans for the first division game.

Kimball Adams didn’t bother to get out of bed for the quarterback meeting.

At first Suzy denied that Red Kilroy was in his office. She offered to take a message.

“C’mon, Suzy, it’s me, Taylor,” the quarterback spurned the message offer. “Red is at the office at six-thirty every morning except Sunday, when he waits until seven o’clock. He’s deeply religious.”

“I’m sorry.” Suzy kept her eyes on Taylor’s face and smiled. “I have my orders.”

“I haven’t been released or cheated out of any money. I have a meeting”—Taylor pointed to the small gold watch on Suzy’s slender wrist—“and Red is never late. Red is on schedule.” Taylor gazed down at Suzy’s watch and took her slim hands in his thick, long-fingered grip. “You have beautiful hands.” He turned Suzy’s hands over and over, enjoying their delicate sensitive shape. “Beautiful hands.”

“Thanks very much.” Suzy withdrew from his grip. “They came with the arms. I just looked down and there they were.”

“Good, use one of them to dial Red and tell him the heir apparent, the man they call the Franchise on a slow news day, is here for the quarterback meeting and to take any messages back to Kimball Adams, who has a terrible hangover and a fat, ugly girl lying unconscious across his thorax, making attendance, as well as breathing, next to impossible.”

“Buzz off, Taylor.” Suzy turned her eyes on the message pad, her slender fingernails drumming the desk top.

“
You
ever try to get out from under an unconscious fat lady?”

“It isn’t that hard.” She looked up. “You
really
have a meeting?”

“Doesn’t Red
have
visitors? I’m not kidding, I’m here and Kimball isn’t. You can’t imagine how tough a fat woman can be to move when she’s out cold.” Taylor ran a finger across his lip thoughtfully. “I can’t figure how Kimball got under there.”

“Somebody probably dropped her on him.” Suzy began dialing Red Kilroy’s office number. Red answered and told her to buzz Taylor right in.

Dick Conly passed the quarterback in the hall. Suzy replaced the receiver just as the general manager reached the reception area.

“How about letting me take you to lunch?” Conly asked the pert young blonde.

“The coach says not to date players,” Suzy told him.

“What player? I’m the general manager.”

“I’ll let you know later.” Suzy released the button on her desk and the inner door stopped buzzing. “You look a lot better than you did at camp.”

“I was sick—all those two-a-days. What about lunch?”

The phone began buzzing.

“Okay, okay, just let me work.” Suzy snatched up the receiver. “Texas Pistols. Mr. Conly? Certainly, let me ring.” Dick Conly went back to his office.

Suzy had her sights on Dick Conly. She had a nose for power, and Dick had power. He would share it with her, but Suzy Ballard was not certain he had
enough
power. She was young and she, too, had plans. Big plans.

“Can’t be too careful, Taylor.” Red remained seated, marking up a paper gridiron as the quarterback entered his office. The coach was noting what the defense did on the field, where and when, down and yardage. “You heard about Abdul Willie putting his fist through the door?”

“Something about you reneging on a promise to pay his bills,” Taylor said. “He called Bobby Hendrix to see what the Union could do; Hendrix called Terry Dudley, who ...”

“Don’t.” Red held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear the word
union
.”

“Then you might hear Abdul breathing down your neck again.”

“It wasn’t me.” Red dropped his felt marker and opened his arms. A gesture of innocence. “It was that goddam Lem Three who promised him.”

“Just like Jack the Equipment Man decides who to cut?”

“Why?” Red looked up at Taylor. “Why do you always attack me, try to undermine my command?”

“I can’t stop myself; the coach is best who coaches least. It’s an old Chinese Ping-Pong axiom.” Taylor walked around the desk and peered over Red’s shoulder at the gridiron marks. “You’re staff and I don’t trust you as far as I can throw Ox Wood.”

“I guess you have your reasons”—Red played sad—“but I’m telling you”—tears welled in the head coach’s eyes; he was good at command tears—“you misjudge me. That’s what worries me.”

“Worries you....” Taylor laughed, again amazed. “Worries
you?
”

Dick Conly took Suzy out to lunch. They went to the Jewboy over off Houston Street. It was a Mexican-food place.

“Why do they call a Mexican restaurant the Jewboy?” Suzy asked. They were seated in a corner booth.

“Trying to keep the food faddists and Mexicans out.”

The main dining room was small and dark. The floor was either earth or soft dirty wood. A large white refrigerator stood next to the jukebox, which featured nothing but Little Joe en La Familia, “King” Carrasco and the Jack-A-Lope Brothers with Kimmy Rhodes. The Jack-A-Lope boys were on Rude Records, Conly’s favorite label.

“You want a beer?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of brown Sherman’s cigarettes.

“I better not.”

“You’re with me.” Suzy took the slim natural tobacco cigarette Conly offered and Dick fired his gold Dunhill. “I wanted you to have the day off to help me get that fat woman off Kimball Adams. Red thinks Kimball’s feet may not be getting any blood.”

Suzy put the brown cigarette down. “Is he kidding?”

“I don’t think Red kids. If he does, we’re all in serious trouble. There are large amounts of money riding on the assumption that the one thing Red Kilroy is not is a joker.”

“What does that mean?” She held up the Sherman’s and puffed daintily.

“Nothing. Except you get the afternoon off to have lunch. I’ll bet the fat lady gets off Kimball under her own steam and both quarterbacks will be at the practice field bright and early tomorrow.”

“That’s all?” Suzy looked down at the ashtray, knocking ashes.

“Enjoy yourself. I’m not dangerous unless I have an investment of time, money or emotion.” The general manager looked at the young girl. So young. “I’m powerful but seldom ruthless because I plan ahead. Now, how about that beer?” He didn’t wait for a reply but stood and walked over to the big white refrigerator. The floor felt mushy under his boots. He took two Bohemian Club beers from the refrigerator and returned to the table. Suzy was finishing her Sherman’s and putting it out in the ashtray.

“I have always considered that a paper trail is fatal.” Dick set the beers on the table. “I never write the important things down; I remember. Thinking ahead and a good memory are always worth something in cold cash or career trajectory.” He paused to watch her face. “And I’m looking for an executive secretary.”

“I can’t type,” Suzy said quickly, turning suspicious. He was moving faster than she expected.

“I don’t need a typist, I need someone who can think,” Dick replied. “You are very perceptive, ambitious ...”

“And I have a good body.”

“That, too, plus an excellent memory.” Dick smiled, his offer genuine and his manner disarming. “Think about it.”

“I will.” Suzy drank her beer. Conly watched her slender hand carry the bottle to her lips, her head tilting back, her neck pulsing slightly as she drank. She set her bottle down and licked her lips. “You people are nuts,” she said, then belched.

“Professional football is for misfits and crazies,” Conly replied. “But I’d rather be a misfit or a crazy than somebody who fits in and gets along. God, I would hate to be a person everybody liked.”

There were no other customers in the small dining room. The waitress, in a white uniform, sat at the table closest to the cash register and talked to the cashier, a tall woman with red hair piled into a multistoried beehive.

“I wonder if she’s going to come take our order?” Suzy absently peeled the label off the wet brown beer bottle.

“She’s waiting to see if we’re serious.” Dick got up, walked over to the refrigerator and returned with two more beers. The waitress watched him all the way, wrote something on her pad, then went back to talking with the cashier.

“You’ve definitely got her interested,” Suzy said. “She’s taking notes.”

“What we need are a couple more customers. Get her a little more motivated. Otherwise we might have to drink three beers apiece.”

“Why don’t you just go tell her we want to order?”

“I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

“High school doesn’t prepare you for stuff like this,” Suzy said, starting her second beer.

“I never even finished high school, but I still got my law degree.” Dick Conly waved at the waitress, who ignored him.

“You must be one of those natural geniuses.”

“Sort of,” Dick said. “I cheated and lied a lot. Still do.”

“Me too,” Suzy said, excited at their particular communion.

“I talked to Lem and just sort of lied my way from roller skates to receptionist in one leap.” Suzy giggled.

“Well, from now on, Hot Wheels, you work under me.”

“I’ve had experience in that position....” Suzy let her voice trail off, smiling at the general manager. She put her elbows on the rough wooden table and held her beer bottle to her mouth with both hands, then glanced at the waitress.

“We have plenty of time.”

“For what?” Balancing the beer on her lower lip, she peered the length of the bottle at Conly, then tilted the bottle. The beer wet her lips. Her slender throat moved slightly.

Conly nodded. “You can really drink beer.”

“I can really do a lot of things,” Suzy said. “I plan to do them too. Model, actress, things like that. A.D. says he’ll get me modeling jobs and, with Texas increasing film production, finally work into the movies full-time. I can do it. Maybe you could help.”

“Hey, Reba,” Dick yelled, “get off your butt and get us two of Pedro’s dog-meat dinners.”

The waitress wrote on her pad, then slowly got to her feet and made her way toward the kitchen. “You want them mild or hot?”

“I want them mild, and I mean
mild
.”

“I want to be in show business,” Suzy went on as if Dick hadn’t spoken, “and you and A.D. are my first contacts. Contacts are important.”

“How important?”

“Real important.”

“Well,” Conly backed off, “all I know about Hollywood is what I see in the movies.”

Dick Conly had excellent contacts in Hollywood, as Cyrus had financed several low-budget westerns and horror films. He had been executive producer on the films, which had been shot in Texas and Los Angeles, though Dick purposely kept this information from Suzy.

No sense in helping her cheat and lie to me
, Dick thought.

T
HE FIRST SEASON
Dick Conly hired charter planes at inflated cost from a small regional carrier owned by Chandler Industries. The inflated charter fees offered the Pistols additional expense writeoffs while helping finance the rebuilding of Tex-Mex Airlines to take advantage of deregulation and the regional-feeder airline boom in Texas.

Unfortunately that first year Tex-Mex Airlines consisted of old propeller-driven craft, mostly DC-3s and -4s and a couple of DC-6Bs.

The team flew the best 6B, while Red and his staff, Cyrus Chandler and Dick Conly took their families and friends in the Chandler Industries’ DC-9.

The Franchise had flight insurance on all its players except Bobby Hendrix, Kimball Adams and Taylor Rusk, who refused to sign because the policies named the Franchise as beneficiary.

The charter pilots had all come from South American countries where Chandler Industries had operations. Pleasant, polite fellows with little grasp of the English language or North American geography, they had been pilots for military governments that had since fallen from favor.

On the Cleveland flight the Nicaraguan pilot mistakenly landed in Toledo, and the Dallas flight ended at Meachum Field in Fort Worth. In the rain, coming into Green Bay, the Colombian sloshed the ancient plane to a halt in the mud one hundred feet to the right of the concrete runway.

After that Bobby Hendrix flew commercial, paying his own way.

“Bobby’s always been scared of flying,” Kimball Adams explained to Taylor.

“You call this flying?”

Taylor grew accustomed to the sobs and whimpers of his teammates as they waited in airport lounges or aboard the plane.

After the Minnesota game, the Nicaraguan was trying to take off in a snowstorm, overloaded with gasoline, football equipment and players. The plane crashed off the end of the runway. Its wheels never left the ground.

By radio from the DC-9, Cyrus ordered Jack the Equipment Man, the highest-ranking member of management on board, to have the plane towed back onto the runway. He wanted them to try again.

“The Pistols don’t give up, Jack,” Cyrus said. “Understood? Besides, they’re insured.” Several players cried openly.

On the second try into the teeth of the storm, the lumbering overweight plane got off, bouncing once in an open field, where the landing gear yanked a quarter mile of barbed-wire fence out of the ground.

A beer in his bandaged hand, Kimball turned to Taylor and yelled over the engines’ scream, “Hey,
amigo, qué pasa?
”

T
HE
T
EXAS
P
ISTOLS
were not successful their first season, and Taylor Rusk played sparingly. Mercifully.

There wasn’t a whole lot to be picked up out there by Taylor except bad habits and broken bones.

Kimball Adams played battered behind the porous offensive line, anchored only by All-Pro Ox Wood and the intense All-Rookie Simon D’Hanis. Kimball was the last quarterback to play with a single pencil-bar face mask. He was often bloodied and he played mad, always mad.

Ox couldn’t protect Kimball from everybody. Enlisting help from middle linebacker Margene Brinkley and others on both defense and offense, Ox devised a strategy of massive retaliation, sometimes to the complete disregard of the final score. Horrible revenge was exacted from those teams Ox thought were overly zealous in the inevitable sacking of Texas Pistols quarterback Kimball Adams.