The Franchise (46 page)

Taylor Rusk shook his head. “List me among the missing.”

Terry Dudley hunched his huge frame over the table, pushing his long, melancholy face next to Taylor’s. “I’m going into politics, Taylor. Finish up the Union work, do some network television, get good name exposure ... but I’ve got to be careful. First I’ll run for San Antonio mayor, then a statewide office—maybe railroad commissioner.” Terry leaned back and locked his long fingers behind his head. His arms jutted out like giant wings. “A couple of years regulating the oil companies on the railroad commission will give me enough in campaign contributions to run for governor or the US Senate ...”

“Then president,” Taylor interrupted, “and finally election for life as emperor of the Western Hemisphere.”

“I’m tall enough to be emperor.”

“How did you ever get tied up with Charlie Stillman?” Taylor wanted to know.

“He brought the deal to me. The network package. Everything.” Terry shook his head. “I know you don’t like him. Hell, I don’t like him, but it’s goddam big bucks they’re paying, and they are paying today. We need TV exposure and the money.”

“If you are ever going to be emperor.”

“Well,” Terry Dudley announced, banging his empty glass, “I am steering my course for the biggest spectator sport of all: politics.” Terry’s eyes twinkled in a sudden rush of humor. “And Spur has paid off in real-world contacts.”

“What real world? Hendrix is dead and the show’s canceled.”

Taylor stared at Terry. “You should be very nervous with the idea that Bobby Hendrix just happened to fall out of an airplane during labor-management talks,” he said. “You better be prepared, because if you’re wrong about Charlie Stillman or the network, you could be
dead
wrong.” Taylor stood and stretched. “Now I’ve got to go tell a woman and two little boys that Daddy isn’t ever coming home again.”

Taylor left the bar to tell Ginny Hendrix the awful news.

Terry Dudley, his body scrunched into a tiny straight-backed wooden chair, watched his old college friend leave, then signaled the waiter for another double Herradura on the rocks. He drank alone until the bar closed, then went to his room.

Tapping a gram bottle on the dresser, the seven-foot Union director used a matchbook cover to scrape some white powder into two thick lines about two inches long. He quickly snorted the lines into his sinus cavities through a bar straw, wiped the white residue off the dresser top with a big bony finger and rubbed it on his gums.

He pulled a chair up to the window facing the dark ocean and, drinking from the tequila bottle in his lap, sat all night listening to the Caribbean, wondering about Bobby Hendrix and dreaming of being emperor of the Western Hemisphere.

D
RIVING BACK TO HIS
hotel, Taylor stopped at the harbor, turning the rented topless Jeep so the one pitiful headlight shone across the water to the big cruiser that A.D. and Charlie Stillman had been aboard earlier in the evening.

The weak yellow light of the headlight dribbled across the water’s surface, fading quickly. Taylor pulled forward until the Jeep was at the breakwater’s edge, the front wheels dangerously close to rolling off the concrete. It was a twenty-foot drop to the ocean. The headlight flickered at the back of the boat, the roll of ocean putting the black painted name momentarily in the yellow beam, then snatching it away again. The big cruiser bobbed up and down. Slowly the word on the stern rebounded in the light to Taylor Rusk’s tequila-addled brain. It was such a simple name.

Momma
, it read,
Corpus Christi, Texas.

Momma. Corpus Christi.
The body of Christ.

That night Taylor again told the two young boys about how he and Bobby had driven a tank from Texas to Germany to kill Hitler, stopping in Rome to kill Mussolini, then driving to New York and Washington to punch out the military-industrial complex.

Smiling peacefully, Bobby and Billy fell asleep as Uncle Taylor got to the part in the story where he and the boys’ dad and mom came back from the war and decided to invent football.

Anytime that night, when Bobby or Billy would ask a question—like “Who was Mussolini?”—Uncle Taylor told them to ask their mother. Later.

Down on the dark beach, several hundred yards from the hotel, Ginny Hendrix was crying and screaming their father’s name into the warm Caribbean wind. The slight breeze and surf drowned her cry completely. She knew she was screaming. She could feel the vibrations in her jawbone, the pain in her throat.

The next morning a hoarse Ginny Hendrix told the boys that their father was dead and gone.

Taylor ended up with a greater respect for the network guys by the time twenty-four hours had passed.

They showed up for Ginny and the boys at noon in the only clean black Cadillac four-door on the island. They wore business suits and took care of business. They knew how to be executives. They comforted the widow and orphans while every other son of a bitch in that hotel jumped when they snapped an order.

Overnight they had contacted Gus Savas in Houston and had taken him by private jet to Mérida, where he was with Bobby’s remains, waiting for his daughter and grandchildren to join him. Then the private jet would depart immediately for Houston. Normal customs and INS rituals had been waived by both governments.

The network guys were great at getting a dead man quietly out of Mexico,
Taylor thought as he watched them hydroplane away from the hotel.

On the other hand, Taylor couldn’t get
himself
out of the country. So he went looking for Kimball Adams.

“It was your travel agency that booked these tickets,” Taylor said to the ex-quarterback when he found him two days later in a rundown bar south of town. “They won’t honor the ticket, Kimball. The airline says you paid with a revoked credit card.” Taylor waved the plane ticket.

Kimball did not appear to be listening or, for that matter, conscious. Taylor Rusk knew from past experience that Kimball was both conscious
and
listening. Kimball Adams had been drunk and awake since he heard that Bobby Hendrix had fallen out of the very plane Kimball had talked him into.

Kimball Adams was glad to talk about anything that could take his mind off the awful vision he had of what his ambition had created and destroyed. Anything. Talk about anything else. The expired credit card or about a game when he shaved points or the time he threw the interception and then blocked Ox Wood. Kimball would talk about anything to get his mind off Hendrix ... about how in the old days Ox always liked for him to put his cigarettes out on his tongue or about how, when he came to the Pistols, Red Kilroy picked Kimball out as a cheater and gave him two years to make Taylor Rusk the Franchise.

“You were sure Fresh Meat then, kid.” Kimball laughed and smiled. “You had a real godfather in Red; in the Old League we’d a chewed you up and spit you out.”

“It isn’t the Old League anymore, Kimball.”

“Don’t I know it.” Kimball grinned, his false teeth too white, too large.

“I want to go home,” Taylor said, tapping his fingernail on the red and white airline ticket.

“Jesus, man,” Kimball pleaded, “don’t leave me here alone. Your pal Dudley is gone, Stillman and the network guys are gone. The sons-a-bitches. Don’t leave yet. I want somebody to talk to.” Kimball’s face was dirty, unshaven, sweat-and tear-streaked. His eyes were red. Talking as fast as he could and smelling like alcohol, sweat, piss and fear. “The lousy bastards tell me it will be my big break in the travel agency business and then take my best friend up and drop him smooth out of the fucking plane. There wasn’t even no door on the son of a bitch, Taylor. No fucking door. Your typical goddam Mexican operation.”

Several dark-skinned men in the bar turned toward Kimball when he spit out the word
Mexican
with such obvious distaste. Kimball just glared back at them with the same crazed eyes that had frightened bigger, stronger, even smarter, men to that moment’s hesitation that is life or death.

“Yeah, I said goddam
Mexican
!” Kimball spit the words again. Quickly now. No doubt. Live or die. Or mind your business.

The brown-skinned men returned quickly to their own pursuits. Perhaps it was the Indians’ innate sensitivity toward madmen.

“There wasn’t a goddam door on the plane!” Kimball seemed to be pleading. “If I had known they weren’t gonna even have a door ... I know how scared he gets.... Goddam, man, I’m not stupid.... I wouldn’t have asked him to go.... Are you crazy?” Kimball seemed to answer a private inquisitor. “Am I crazy?” Kimball was drinking from a quart bottle of gin and crying then, heavy tears running through dirt and stubble. He was wearing a filthy yachting cap with
Momma, Corpus Christi, TX
stitched on the front. “I shouldn’t have let him get on that plane. He was so scared. He knew he was gonna die, but he went anyway ’cause I asked him to do it.”

It was eleven in the morning. The sun was just beginning to get hot.

Taylor’s skin felt clammy.

Kimball brushed at a fly crawling across his lip with the hand that held the bottle. He missed the fly and hit himself in the chin with the gin bottle. The fly flew to the ceiling.

“Why’d you take him to the airport?” Taylor winced at the sound of chin meeting gin bottle.

Kimball shook his head and gathered his thoughts. He had almost knocked himself out. He blinked a few times at Taylor. “Stillman told me the network guys wanted him at the airport and I should deliver him. There wasn’t room for me anyway. Stillman took the copilot’s seat and the big fat cameraman took up the whole port side of the plane. That left Bobby the seat right by the open door. They wanted him there so he would show up in the film of the Tulum ruins. Assholes, I hope they got their shot.”

“You ever talk to the network guys or Terry Dudley?”

Kimball shook his head and sweat rolled from beneath his dirty hairline down the back of his neck. He coughed and hawked and spit on the floor. Then glared the room full of Mexicans down again.

“Nobody ever talked to me about anything except Stillman, and now he’s gone.” Kimball coughed. “I called his hotel this morning. He checked out yesterday.”

“I guess we could call Stillman the producer,” Taylor said. “He said he was the producer.”

“Stillman gave me the crooked credit card.”

“You already knew the credit card was no good?” Taylor asked.

“Fresh Meat”—he looked directly at Taylor—“don’t you think I already tried to get off this motherfucking island myself?”

Kimball took a deep swallow of gin and some alcohol dribbled from his mouth, mixing with his tears. “Do I look like a complete fool? I can look in the mirror and see I ain’t stupid.” Kimball was arguing with his invisible interrogator. “What makes people think I’m so goddam dumb? Just ’cause I’m a football player?”

“It isn’t
just
because you’re a football player, Kimball.” Taylor got up and left the ticket on the table. “But being one sure doesn’t help much.” Taylor pointed at Kimball’s dirty yachting cap. “Whose boat is that in the harbor?
Momma
from Corpus Christi?”

“It belongs to the Cobianco brothers.... I don’t know how it got here or who’s on board.”

“You don’t want to know, Kimball.”

“They trick-fucked me, Fresh Meat,” Kimball said. He took off the hat and threw it out the window next to their table.

“I know. And they aren’t finished.” Taylor turned and walked out into the bright, hot Caribbean sun.

T
AYLOR DROVE THE
rented Jeep north through town, back toward his hotel. The activity along the downtown waterfront had slowed with the midday heat. A few tourists wandered in their bright-colored shirts and shorts, their Japanese cameras strapped across their chests. At the harbor the replica of the Spanish galleon was gone, but the big white cruiser
Momma
was still moored, rolling slightly with the small Caribbean swells.

Taylor stopped and looked at the cruiser. Several people were gathered on the fantail. Taylor left the Jeep and walked across the breakwater to several rowboats. He paid a kid two dollars to row him out to the
Momma
and wait for him.

As they pulled alongside, Taylor could hear happy chatter and laughter. He recognized Wendy Chandler’s laugh. There were seven people on the fantail, having drinks, enjoying finger sandwiches and light conversation.

Taylor climbed over the side and the gay chatter stopped. The people turned, staring openmouthed at the big quarterback. Taylor’s eyes went from one person to the next until he had identified everyone assembled around the table. Wendy glanced at Taylor for a moment and then turned back to Lem Three, frozen in his deck chair, his mouth agape. On Lem’s right was LouElla Burden, wife of the league commissioner, Robbie Burden, who sat at her right. A.D. Koster was next to the commissioner, and next to A.D. was Donald “Mr. C.” Cobianco, owner of the
Momma
and the eldest of the three Cobianco brothers. Squirming nervously in his chair next to Mr. C. was Charlie Stillman. Taylor heard shuffling from the lower cabin and Tiny Walton suddenly filled the hatchway, his thick arms folded, his eyes dark and focused on Taylor. The outline of the butt of a .45 automatic stuffed in the waistband of his deck pants showed through his T-shirt.

“I guess you all heard about Bobby Hendrix?” Taylor’s eyes moved from face to face but always returned to Wendy Chandler’s. She acted like he was not there. Everyone else kept their eyes fastened on the big football player.

“Yes, Taylor.” The commissioner found his eloquent voice first. That’s why they paid him $500,000 a year to be the commissioner. “It was a tragic accident. Charles, here, was telling us all about it.”

“He must tell pretty funny dead-people stories,” Taylor said, his eyes still moving. “The way you all were laughing, someone could get the idea that you all were happy about something.” He saw movement out of the corner of his eyes and stepped closer to the rail to keep Tiny Walton constantly in his field of vision.