The Franchise (37 page)

Dick Conly stood florid-faced, ramrod straight, his swollen stomach pushing out his shirt. Cyrus tried to meet Conly’s stare but failed. He knew Conly meant what he said. He didn’t know if Conly could actually do it but wasn’t in any position to find out. His eyes dropped and the anger left his voice.

“It will be there,” Cyrus said, “but Suzy Ballard won’t.”

“I’ll probably live longer if she isn’t. But will you?” Dick turned and left Cyrus Chandler’s office. He knew Suzy would talk Cyrus into making A.D. Koster general manager. He realized he didn’t care.

It’s not my job anymore
, he thought.
It’s not my job
. Dick Conly smiled at the sense of relief that filled him.
I’ll show them; I’ll outlive the little rat
. Conly laughed aloud as he walked to the elevator. He didn’t even bother to clean out his desk.

In the elevator the Muzak was playing.

You took my little heart and ran it ’round this town.

Now you’re gonna find your circus needs a brand new clown ...

... y’all can get me drunk, but, baby, I’m sober now ...

Suzy Ballard was not waiting for Dick when he reached his house in the Pecos Mountains. She was with A.D. Koster, making plans to take over the Franchise.

C
YRUS WAS UPSET
by Dick Conly’s abrupt departure, but the longer he thought about it, the better he felt. It would never have been the same once Conly found out that Suzy and Cyrus were lovers and would be married. Cyrus hadn’t planned on getting married, but Suzy had convinced him that he was still young enough to start a second family. She convinced him of many things.

That first night he flew out to meet her at the Hot Springs Ranch, he thought about the genius of Conly’s last creation: the Pistol Dome.

The Domed Stadium Authority Bond Issue and the two thousand acres in Clyde and all the property tax exemptions had been a brilliant scheme to vertically integrate the Franchise: a money-making machine that would stage football games. The yearly twelve-million-dollars-per-team network television revenue already put the Pistols and every other franchise in profit before the first stadium ticket was ever sold. Complete control of all revenue sources from parking and concessions to rental and other fees at the new domed stadium would allow the Franchise to shift income around, depending on the tax status of each of the individual enterprises.

What worried Cyrus right after Conly resigned was that Dick was the only one who knew how and why it all worked. Cyrus had no idea but decided he would spend some time with Suzy Ballard out at the Hot Springs Ranch and think things through.

He would sit down and figure the whole thing out. If Dick Conly could do it, so could he.
I’m the boss now
, he thought.

And as Cyrus’s big two-engined brown and white King Air was winging its way to the Hot Springs Ranch, Cyrus really was glad that Dick Conly was gone. He was tired of Conly always looking over his shoulder. He never understood that the man looking over his shoulder was also protecting his back.

It was a very serious mistake.

Suzy was waiting at the lighted concrete landing strip north of the ranch headquarters. She wore tight jeans tucked into red ostrich boots, along with a red and green flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the front unbuttoned below the mounds of her cream-white breasts. Her blond hair was braided, tied with a red ribbon in a thick pigtail that hung down her back to the diamondback rattlesnake belt. An old, battered, sweat-stained two-hundred-dollar beaver-hide cowboy hat sat tilted slightly forward on her head. Her eyes glowed with anticipation. She held her lips in a slight pout.

When the plane touched down, Suzy stepped into the big black Ford four-wheel drive pickup. She had the truck idling on the runway beside the plane when the pilot dropped the stairs and Cyrus climbed out, beaming, flushed with excitement and anticipation.

“Tell him to take the plane back,” Suzy said as Cyrus opened the truck door.

“Why?” Cyrus stepped into the richly appointed cab.

“I want us to be alone,” Suzy replied, licking her lips. “Tell him. Come on. Then let’s get out of here.”

Cyrus slammed the truck door; the window was already down. The pilot stepped down beside the plane.

“Tell him,” Suzy urged. “We can have him come back anytime. You’re the boss around here, so tell him to fly back to the city.”

Cyrus nodded. “Take her back to the city,” he said to the pilot.

“You’re the boss, Mr. Chandler.” The pilot saluted.

Suzy stomped on the gas and the heavy-duty tires squealed. The pilot watched the pickup disappear down the runway, off to the south and the big fortresslike ranch house hidden by darkness and the rough country.

The first night Suzy convinced Cyrus to replace Dick Conly with A.D. Koster. It wasn’t particularly difficult. Suzy already had A.D.’s employment contract filled out, which Cyrus didn’t even bother to read before signing.

“Now that that is out of the way,” Suzy said, unbuttoning the few remaining buttons on her flannel shirt, “I want us to take a long vacation. Let A.D. and the commissioner worry about Taylor Rusk’s five-million-dollar offer.”

“Can you believe that?” Cyrus said. “After I spoke up for the guy at the owners meeting.”

“That’s gratitude,” Suzy agreed, shucking the shirt. She was naked to the waist in a battered hat, red ostrich boots and tight jeans.

“Should never let a kid be an owner,” Cyrus growled. “We should have a League rule, like we used to about foreigners.”

“Let A.D. and the commissioner worry about it, Cyrus,” Suzy said. “You come here and help me with my boots. We are going on a long vacation.”

Cyrus crossed the bedroom. “I need a long vacation.”

“All we have is time and each other,” Suzy said. “That’s all I want.”

Suzy didn’t mention the five hundred million dollars that Cyrus was worth. She figured it was included.

“A long vacation, honey.” Cyrus pulled at her red boots.

“Forever.” She fumbled with his belt. “Forever.” She pushed against him and guided him into her. “Forever,” she said as her hips heaved to meet his short, quick thrusts and he shuddered to a climax.

The next morning Suzy started using Valium and Lasix on Cyrus.

They stayed isolated at the Hot Springs Ranch for weeks. The hands and domestic help were all wetbacks and spoke no English. Only Suzy spoke Spanish.

Cyrus Chandler was never the boss again.

“H
OW’S MY GODSON?”
Taylor asked Simon as the big lineman limped into the training room.

Simon didn’t answer. He just grunted and walked on through to the weight room. In a moment Taylor heard the sound of the pulleys and cams, the groans of Simon’s futile efforts mingling with the clang of metal against metal and the squeak of flesh twisting and turning against leather pads.

Although the rest of his body bulged with muscle tissue, Simon was pale white and his right leg was noticeably smaller and weaker than his left. A purple welt started several inches above the knee, snaked around the kneecap and ended in a grotesque lump alongside his shinbone. The lump of scar tissue had formed around the tube inserted during his hospital stay to drain the wound, ravaged by staphylococcus. The bacteria had raged through the big man’s system—weakened by cortisone and Butazolidin—and the prolonged sickness, temperature and forced idleness had forever weakened the leg and damaged the joint. The doctor told Red Kilroy and Dick Conly that the prognosis was not hopeful and the best chance was to try to get Simon healthy enough to trade. The doctor told Simon that his knee was as good as new.

Better than before.

When Simon finally escaped from the hospital and began his recovery and rehabilitation, he found his whole body was flab and fat instead of the hard muscle tissue he had built so steadily over the years. He worked at his comeback with a passion that was madness, coming to the training room at eight o’clock in the morning and staying until the trainers forced him out at night so they could go home. He finally got his own key. He increased the weight he lifted as well as his dosage of steroids, and his body rapidly responded. Except for his right leg. He took megadoses of vitamins, desiccated liver, calcium, vitamin C and iron. He stayed in the weight room every day, all day long, inventing exercises of his own to break loose the adhesions that had formed beneath the ugly purple scar. He cried in pain and frustration as the leg failed to gain in size or strength and continued to hurt. The pain was constant, but he convinced himself that the more it hurt, the faster it was healing.

He tore at the weights, the levers, the camshafts. The pain racked his body and mind. He worked and cried and cried and worked, but the leg would not respond. It would not even straighten out completely. The ravaged joint had lost about ten degrees of flexibility. The
last
ten degrees, the most important ten degrees. The knee would be forever unstable, but no one told Simon and he would not have accepted it if they had told him. He struggled mightily against impossible odds, immovable objects, irresistible forces, but the leg stayed weak and sore. He never stopped limping. And although his body would be soaked with sweat and red with blood-gorged vessels, his skin had a gray pallor and his eyes were dull. He never smiled. He no longer laughed.

“How’s my godson?” Taylor Rusk asked Simon again. He had followed him into the weight room. Simon bent over, adjusted the Nautilus machine and glared over his shoulder at the quarterback. Taylor was leaning against the big weight rack by the wall mirror.

“He’s all right,” Simon growled, turning back to the machine. “He cries all goddam night because Buffy dried up and had to put him on formula.”

“How’d that happen?” Taylor asked, surprised at his own concern. “She nursed the girls okay.”

“How the hell should I know!” Simon said without looking up. He crouched down, hooked himself into the machine and began doing squats. Taylor could see that his left leg was doing most of the work. It was a bad sign.

“Yeeaahhh! Yeeaahhh!” Simon screamed with each ferocious effort.

“What’s the boy got?” Taylor asked. “Colic?”

“Why the hell do you care?” Simon limped and puffed to the next machine, setting it up for quadriceps exercises, and attacked it with fury.

“He’s my godson.” Taylor watched his friend groan and strain against the blue-and-silver metal-and-leather machine.

“I don’t remember you ever mentioning God in all the time I’ve known you,” Simon said angrily. He moved to another machine, approaching it like it was a lifelong enemy. “You found religion now that Buffy named the baby after you?” There was no humor in his voice. “The little bastard don’t shut up pretty soon, you may find him on your doorstep some morning.”

“Jesus, Simon, calm down. You’re not the first guy who got his knee tore up in this fucking business, and you aren’t gonna be the last.”

“What the hell do you know about it, pretty boy?” Simon whirled and glared at the quarterback. “I did this keeping people from messing up that face that Buffy thinks so much of.”

“Everybody appreciates your sacrifice, Simon, but it isn’t like you got killed. And Buffy doesn’t like my face.”

“If you don’t shut the fuck up and get out of here, you ain’t gonna have a face.”

“This is horseshit, Simon, and you know it,” Taylor said, weariness creeping into his voice. “You’re acting like a complete fruitcake.”

“You lousy son of a bitch!” Simon lunged toward Taylor, snatching up a five-pound weight and hurling it at his head. The flat metal disc smashed into the mirror as Taylor ducked back. Simon kept coming at him, his eyes black with fury, his face twisted in anguish and hatred.

Taylor leaned away from the first punch. Simon began flailing roundhouses, his huge fists rippling the air as Taylor stayed on his toes and danced away. Simon’s lack of agility was so apparent, he looked more foolish than dangerous.

“Calm down, Simon, for God’s sake. Calm down before you hurt yourself.” Taylor kept moving away from the raging, limping man, whose punches struck out at nothing but air. The frustration at failing to connect drove him to greater fury.

“I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch! I swear to God I’ll kill you!” Simon kept coming, his right leg failing and buckling, his left leg only partially compensating.

Taylor began to get frightened as he saw the madman his friend had become. Simon took a wild swing, stepping out with his bad leg. Taylor stepped to the side and hit the big man twice on the chin—hard. The big square head snapped back twice. Simon’s right leg buckled; he dropped his fists to regain his balance, and Taylor drove a right across his cheek. Simon fell to the ground, sobbing. Taylor stood back a moment, watching the pitiful heap of broken, quivering muscle that was his friend, Simon D’Hanis.

The trainers both came into the weight room and Taylor moved over to Simon.

“Come on, Simon,” he said. “I’m sorry. Let me help you up.”

“Don’t come near me,” Simon sobbed into the purple carpet. “If I get my hands on you, I’ll kill you. I mean it: I’ll kill you. I’ll rip you into pieces.” The big man quivered, screamed and sobbed. “You bastard. You ungrateful bastard. After all I did for you. You’re no friend of mine.”

“Well, you’ll always be my friend, Simon. A bad knee just doesn’t change things that much for me.”

“That’s because it ain’t your knee,” Simon spit. He had stopped sobbing. His voice again turned cold, passionless. “You’ll see one day. I swear to God, you’ll be sorry.”

“Simon, this is stupid....”

“Don’t call me stupid!” Simon screamed, pushing himself to his knees. One of the trainers grabbed Taylor by the shoulder and pushed him toward the door to the training room. Ox Wood walked into the weight room. He looked at Simon on the floor and then at Taylor. Taylor shook his head and walked out.

“Ox,” the trainer said, “give us a hand here. Simon fell down.”

Taylor didn’t even bother to dress; he just grabbed his clothes and drove home in his shorts and T-shirt. He felt sick. Simon had needed help and understanding and Taylor had only succeeded in humiliating him in front of others. They could never be friends again. Taylor arrived at his apartment and decided to call Buffy and explain to her what had happened. But when he got his door open the phone was ringing. It was Doc Webster calling from his ranch.