The Franchise (49 page)

“I’m not going to do anything.” Taylor continued to slouch into the feather-stuffed couch, his hands clasped behind his head, feet over the heavy brown corduroy arm. “I just need to know.”

“Man, I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anybody.”

Taylor watched Tommy McNamara’s face and eyes closely.

“You know,” Taylor said quickly, “Bobby Hendrix got killed in Mexico.”

“I heard. Fell out of a plane. It came over the wire.” Tommy looked at Taylor. “What happened? Were you there?” His eyes were wide, guileless.

Taylor nodded. “It wasn’t an accident. Somebody killed him.”

“My God.” Tommy seemed surprised, startled, confused. “Who would want to kill Bobby Hendrix? What did he ever do?”

“He wasn’t your source?” Taylor sat up and crouched over the oak slab.

“Bobby? Good Lord, no,” Tommy said. “You know him better than that. He wouldn’t say shit to the press if he had a mouthful.”

“Well, somebody thought he was. Calling your source ‘Deep Threat’ didn’t help.”

“Why do you say that? He wasn’t Deep Threat—too slow.” Tommy resumed rocking at a slow easy pace.

“Well, somebody killed him,” Taylor replied.

Tommy shook his head. “Why kill somebody
after
the story is out?”

“Is the whole story out yet?”

“It’s not,” Tommy said. “That’s what I’m working on now. Another series. There’s so much more, even
you
wouldn’t believe it. But Bobby Hendrix wasn’t my source, and that certainly wasn’t why he died.”

“He didn’t have to be your source,” Taylor argued. “Somebody just had to
think
he was your source.”

“Well, if that’s true ...” Tommy stopped rocking again and his face turned hard; the brown color returned. There was fire in his eyes, a glint of anger, desire, revenge. “... and I hope to God it is not true ...” His skinny body seemed suddenly dangerous, destructive. “... but if somebody thinks they solved their problems by throwing Bobby Hendrix out of an airplane in Mexico, they are going to find themselves sadly mistaken when they pick up next week’s paper.”

“There’s really more?”

“A whole lot more, including the commissioner’s numbered bank accounts in Switzerland and the Bahamas,” Tommy announced. “And Cyrus Chandler, the Cobianco brothers, and the Anglo-Bahamian Bank ...”

“Where did you get that information?” Taylor’s eyes went wide. “Who told you?”

“Everybody
wants the name of my source,” Tommy said. “Well, you can scratch Bobby Hendrix.” Tommy quickly looked up. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant ... well, you knew Bobby, he just wouldn’t say anything.”

“He knew there was no point in it,” Taylor said. “Who could write the truth if they ever got hold of it? Who knows the truth?”

“I got hold of it, buddy-boy,” Tommy snapped angrily. He was like a rat terrier; he didn’t back off even if he got hold of a hundred-pound rat. “And I’m writing it. Christ, it isn’t the gangsters that keep trying to stop me, it’s League Security, Investico. The goddamn US attorney general puts the FBI on me.... They search my house, tap my phone. They’re trying to serve me with a federal grand jury subpoena.” Tommy was vengeful. “Then they plan to immunize me and make me testify. That’s why I’m hiding out here.”

“Take the Fifth.”

“You keep acting like we had a bill of rights. You can’t take the Fifth when you’ve been
immunized.”
Tommy ground out the word. “That’s contempt of court. If I refuse to testify under a grant of immunity, they put me in jail.”

“For how long?”

“A year or two,” Tommy said. “No big thing. Just a year or two out of the middle of my life, not to mention the fact that once I’m immunized and they try forcing me to testify, certain interested and yet unnamed parties might decide that the best way to litigate this constitutional issue is with me dead. Did you hear a car?”

“Yes,” Taylor said. “I’m expecting Wendy.”

“Jesus, man! You got Chandler’s daughter coming here?”

“Don’t worry, Tommy, the two of us can whip her.”

In the fading light Tommy McNamara could see a dust cloud growing behind Coon Ridge, heading for the low-water bridge below the ranch house. He ran outside to the big gnarled Spanish oak at the bend in the road. From beneath the fresh green canopy he could see down to the bridge. The newswriter was back in a few moments and collapsed into the rocking chair.

“It’s Wendy,” he sighed. “She’s got the boy with her.” Taylor was off the couch and outside, waiting to meet the car. Randall was sitting on the seat next to Wendy. His son.

“L
EM HAS AGREED TO
to a divorce.” Wendy spoke for the first time since Randall had dropped off to sleep, curled up in her lap, his head on her breast. She stroked his thick black hair.

The clacking of Tommy McNamara’s typewriter came from the bunkhouse. The creek whispered and hissed below the bluff, crashing softly in the distance against the granite at Panther Hole. “Lem’s leaving the Franchise and going into business with his daddy. Reselling oil. They scared Lem off the boat in Mexico,” Wendy said.

“They scared me off first,” Taylor replied.

Taylor studied the sleeping boy, then watched Wendy’s profile. She looked out the window into the darkness of the creek and cedar brake country.

“Lem’s always known Randall was your child,” Wendy continued. “I guess just about everybody knew.”

“Except me.”

“You never asked.” Wendy looked as she did on the road to Hugo to marry Buffy to Simon. She still had the power to make Taylor see her when and how she chose ... to conceal or reveal.

“Well, Cyrus can’t stop us anymore,” Wendy said finally. “Christ, he can barely zip his pants.”

“What happens now?”

“We take over the Franchise.” She turned her head slowly and deliberately on her long, slender neck until she looked directly at Taylor.

“Do I still have to play?”

“Absolutely. You
are
the Franchise.” The hearth embers reflected in her eyes. The lean arc of her neck contoured into her delicate collarbones, the hollows and shadows. “It’s funny, but now your idea of not confronting my father begins to make sense.” Her pale eyes glittered with fire.

“Not to me. This is
my son
and I missed three years of his life.”

“But you didn’t want—” Wendy protested.

“You don’t know what I wanted.” Taylor cut her off. “You only know what yon wanted. Now you know why I’m more scared of you than Cyrus.”

“Can we begin where we are now?” Wendy asked. “Right now and from this moment forward. All forgiven? No grudges? No blame?”

Wendy lay the sleeping Randall on the wicker sofa, leaned over, pulled Taylor toward her and kissed him long and hard.

“Friends?” Wendy watched him, her voice soft and measured.

Taylor nodded.

“Tonight my father marries Suzy Ballard.” Wendy forced a smile. “They’re getting married on the
All-American Evangelical Hour.
”

“Well, Billy Joe Hardesty didn’t get his own TV show without knowing a pigeon when he sees one drool on himself.”

Taylor followed Wendy outside to the hammocks. They both stared silently off the stone porch, listening to the night sounds. A whippoorwill called from the oak motte behind the cabin. A bat dived at fluttering bugs drawn to the mercury vapor light. Tommy McNamara’s typewriter rattled away in the bunkhouse, sounding like machine-gun fire from the moth and bat war.

“Red always said he would own a franchise or die trying. Looked like he’ll get his chance to do both.” They both sat on the hammock and it swung slowly. “Bobby Hendrix used to tell him that he had a better chance of being adopted by your father than being made a partner.”

“He probably still does,” Wendy said. “But if he’s willing to go with us against A.D. and Suzy.”

“Don’t forget your daddy.”

“I’m not worried about Cyrus. He’s just confused ... disoriented. Suzy has purposely kept him isolated out at the hot springs.” Wendy began to lace her thin fingers together and twist them. “He’s lost without Dick Conly. Once we make a move he’ll sit down and listen to reason. He doesn’t understand the danger he’s in.”

“Nobody does.”

They watched the red lights of an airplane appear over the distand southern horizon and float soundlessly across the great sky.

Wendy hooked her thumb toward the bunkhouse. “How about him?”

“Tommy will help, but we need Tommy’s source. Whoever he is knows more than he’s telling.” Taylor pursed his lips, tapping them with his index finger.

“If we can connect A.D. and my father’s new wife to the gambling and ticket scalping ...” Wendy began to plot.

“You might also connect your father.”

Wendy nodded, her face a petulant scowl.

“There’s one more thing,” Taylor said. “I call the plays. We are in a real fight and we’ll either end up on the boat or in the water, swimming with sharks.”

“Man is born to strive for the heroic.” Wendy glowered.

“You better decide, Wendy. It’s a new game.” His stare offered ruthless absolution. “Bobby Hendrix already guessed wrong. Nobody’s going to get a second chance. Red will speed it all up and go for the Super Bowl this year, twice as fast with A.D. and Suzy trying to put us into the wall. There will not be time for second guesses or the brakes,” Taylor said. “If I make a wrong decision, only going faster will get us out. You accelerate out of trouble in this race—the pedal to the metal.”

“What if you’re wrong?” She held her slim fingers to her lips. Her eyes avoided his scalding stare. “What if you can’t save us by going faster?”

“Then we hit the wall,” Taylor said, “still accelerating.”

“Pretty limited choice you’re offering.” Wendy was hesitant, no longer sardonic. “What if you fail?”

“Then I fail.”

“That’s your answer?”

“There’s no other answer to that question ... except quit.”

Taylor scooped up Randall, carried the small boy to his bed, covered him and kissed his soft, smooth cheek. He stared at the sleeping child and thought of all they had missed. Things that would never be understood. Times that had never happened.

Taylor stayed in Randall’s bedroom, watching him sleep. The boy’s breathing was even.

Time,
Taylor thought,
begins by running out.

W
HEN
T
AYLOR RETURNED
from the bedroom, Wendy had the television on and was watching the electric preacher marry the carhop to Amos Chandler’s baby boy.

Suzy Ballard and Cyrus Chandler faced the Reverend Billy Joe Hardesty, a short, fat man in a dark-blue suit, plain dark narrow tie, white shirt, ankle-length black socks and black alligator loafers with tassels. Suzy guided Cyrus Chandler’s liver-spotted hand toward the solemn man’s, whose great rolls of red flesh flowed over his shirt collar.

“God bless you, brother.” Billy Joe grasped Cyrus’s delicate hand, squeezing with the zeal of the crusader. “It is a great day for the Lord. Welcome to the fold.”

Cyrus winced as the evangelist ground his knuckles together.

“I look forward with a great pride,” Reverend Billy Joe continued, “to joining you two lovely people in holy matrimony before the Lord and the millions of faithful who support my electronic ministry.” Billy Joe turned Cyrus’s liver-spotted hand loose. With his other liver-spotted hand Cyrus rubbed the mashed fingers gently.

Billy Joe gripped his blue polyester lapels and rocked back and forth in his tassled loafers. The motion caused the thin dark-blue knit coat to ripple.

“How is your life, Brother Cyrus? Will you share with us?” A wide grin pushed Billy Joe’s jowls back toward his red jug ears and pulled a large flap of fat up off his collar.

“Well ... ah”—Cyrus continued to massage the thin hand—“ah, lately I have begun to feel ...” Cyrus stopped rubbing his hands and gazed blankly at them. He was searching for the lost thought. “... ah, I guess, that’s not really what I feel.... it’s more like ...” Cyrus twisted his wrinkled face into a scowl of concentration. A slight tremor jogged him and his emaciated body shimmied. The skinny fingers and brown-stained had trembled. He suddenly became an old man. Saliva ran in a slight trickle from the right corner of his pinched mouth.

“Abandoned? Brother Cyrus, do you feel abandoned?” Billy Joe Hardesty prodded.

Cyrus Chandler’s eyes brightened. “Yes. I guess maybe that is it.” Cyrus spoke slowly. “I feel abandoned ... by my friends ... my business associates ... and my family.”

“Well, thank you for sharing, and fear no more, Brother Chandler”—Billy Joe smiled reassuringly—“because I am here to bring you to the family of Jesus Christ, the one and only Savior and Son of God.”

“Praise the Lord.” Suzy watched Cyrus, trying to judge his reaction. “Praise the Lord. Amen.”

“Through me”—Billy Joe Hardesty thumped his own chest loudly, causing his tie to flap and his face to jiggle—“Cyrus Chandler will come to know Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Then Billy Joe joined in holy matrimony the increasingly senile old man and the hard, young and beautiful woman. The one-hundred-voice All-American Youth Choir of blemish-free white teen-agers sang to the new Mr. and Mrs. Cyrus Chandler. Saliva dribbled from both corners of Cyrus’s mouth. His body fluttered occasionally inside his tuxedo.

Suzy Ballard smiled and dabbed the saliva with a white lace handkerchief that matched her $125,000 wedding gown. Glinting in the studio klieg lights, the new Mrs. Chandler’s flawless blue-white emerald-cut nine-carat diamond ring caused hot spots and streaks on the television screen as she gaily wiped and dabbed the saliva from Cyrus Chandler’s chin.

Throughout the ceremony Billy Joe Hardesty admonished people to press their hands to their television sets “as a point of contact with the everlasting soul of Brother Cyrus and Sister Susan and your Savior Jesus Christ throughout this glorious hour of celebration.”

As Cyrus nodded his head, a thin smile turned up the corners of his deeply lined mouth. “Momma would be proud of me,” he said weakly. The saliva still trickled down the sides of his chin. Suzy dabbed it away while she and Billy Joe exchanged smiles.