The Franchise (57 page)

“The Union?” Wendy didn’t know how to react to that information. “Terry Dudley will see all this?” She pointed at the stack of papers. “And will stop it?” Wendy sagged. “It has to stop.
We
are the bad guys.”

“I’m glad somebody finally told me who they were.” Taylor smiled. “I had about given up trying to decide.”

The kitchen door squeaked open. Bob shoved Wendy under the table, snatched out his pistol and dropped, crouching, into a firing position. Taylor stood paralyzed in the middle of the room.

Toby stepped through the door, his eyes going wide as he looked down the barrel of his partner’s revolver.

“It’s me! It’s me!” Toby squealed, his arms raised reactively.

“Goddam, Toby!” Bob lowered the gun, his voice quivering with emotion. “You should have more sense than to just barge in like that. I damn near shot through the door without even waiting to see. Christ!”

“Sorry, boss.” Toby was shamefaced. “I didn’t see anybody outside.”

“I been rethinking this.” Bob stuffed the blue steel Magnum back in its holster. “My suggestion is that once the storm stops and the creek goes down, we clean up our own mess and get out. Deny everything. We were never here. That way none of us ends up squeezed between the grand jury and the Cobianco brothers.”

Taylor nodded agreement, half listening as he read a letter from Don Cobianco to A.D., promising “to take care of any labor troubles in return for the certain considerations previously discussed.” Cobianco Brothers Construction got all the cement work on the new stadium. The brothers also contracted for laborers on the Pistol Dome, bringing them out of Mexico in trailer trucks, keeping half of their pay. Any troublemakers became part of the Pistol Dome.

“You go back out and stay with the car, Toby,” Bob said. “Keep your eyes open and the doors locked. We’ll stay in here and do the same.

“Get the three-fifty-seven out of the glove compartment and keep it next to you on the seat. First, bring me the shotgun. The quarterback here can hit something with it.”

Toby turned back to the door.

Bob turned off the kitchen light and Toby slipped out. In a moment he was back, slipping silently into the kitchen again. In his hand he gripped an eight-shot Smith & Wesson twelve-gauge sawed-off shotgun. Toby locked the door behind him and Bob turned on the light.

“Show him how to use it,” Bob instructed. Toby showed Taylor the safety catch, the pump mechanism, the pump release and the loading procedure. Taylor took the vicious-looking gun, Bob turned out the kitchen light again and Toby slipped back out to take up his post in the car.

Taylor took the shotgun into the living room and propped it next to the brown couch. Putting another couple of oak logs on the glowing coals, he sat next to Wendy on the black and white rug. They both stared into the fire and said nothing while Bob moved from room to room, checking the outside with his infrared binoculars.

The rain let up around five
A.M.
and stopped completely by daybreak. The creek had dropped enough by afternoon to ford the low-water bridge. Wendy went with Bob and Toby. Taylor drove alone. Bob offered Taylor the shotgun but the quarterback refused.

“If they want to kill me,” Taylor said, “I’m not very hard to find and I’m an easy target.”

“Well, put that in a bank vault somewhere,” Bob said, pointing to the package of documents that had cost Tommy McNamara his life. “Then write out your will and leave instructions that the safe-deposit box be opened with only the people you choose present. I would include Wendy and the chief judge for the western district, plus a lawyer you can trust. Do you know any?”

Taylor shook his head. “How about you?” he asked.

“If Wendy’s there, I won’t be far away.” Bob clapped Taylor on the shoulder. “You got balls, kid, but I wouldn’t show those to anybody and I believe you should get yourself a gun.”

“My apartment building has security guards.”

“What company?”

“Security Services, Incorporated.”

Bob frowned. “I believe I’d get myself that gun. The guards SSI hires aren’t any match for Tiny Walton or Investico, if they get involved. Keep your eyes peeled and your back to the wall; stay low and move fast.” Bob walked to his car. That was his good-bye.

The white Ford drove off with Wendy in the backseat. She never turned around. Taylor followed them out to the main road. They turned in opposite directions.

Taylor followed Bob’s instructions concerning the documents, with one addition. He made one more set of copies at the Quik Copy near the University. He spent days studying the documents. He planned to take them to the Union meeting in Houston.

Taylor watched the paper and listened to the news for days. There was never any mention of the three dead men they had left at Doc Webster’s ranch.

Nobody
ever
mentioned Tommy McNamara again.

          
If you gaze long enough into an abyss,

          
the abyss will gaze back at you.

That was the rest of the Nietzsche line that Tommy McNamara had planned to type on his Royal 440 when he was so rudely interrupted.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Taylor called Wendy’s house. Lem Carleton III answered.

“They’re both gone, Taylor,” Lem said. “I don’t know where. She packed up and left in a big hurry. You know we’re getting a divorce?”

Taylor said he knew.

“I was wondering how the boy was doing?” Taylor continued. “I damn near killed him sticking that hole in his throat. I’d just like to make sure he’s all right.”

“He’s fine, Taylor. And I want to thank you for what you did that day. You risked your life for my ... I mean,
our
son. You don’t mind if I lay some claim to him, do you? I raised him some. He is a good boy, and it looks like you’ll be the one to make a man out of him.”

Taylor was embarrassed and saddened being told about his own child—times he had totally missed. He felt weak, ineffective, foolish. Helpless.

“They’ll be back,” Lem said. “Wendy said she just had to get away for a while. She seemed pretty shaken. I guess I’m taking the divorce better than she is. I hope we can all be friends. I always liked you, Taylor, even back in Spur. Come have a drink with me sometime. I’ll tell you stories about your son. He’s a pretty remarkable kid.”

“Thanks, I’ll do that.” Taylor nodded his head and his feet shuffled nervously. “If you hear from Wendy, tell her I’m looking for them. And I’m sorry things didn’t turn out for you.”

“Oh, they turned out fine. I wanted out of the Franchise. It’s a sick business. It makes the oil business look like social work.” Lem laughed at his own joke. “You be careful. With Conly gone and old Cyrus pissing on himself, there’s a new regime up there. A.D. has increased the front-office staff by double and brought in some real bad guys who don’t know a football from a pick handle. He put Johnny Cobianco on the payroll at two hundred thousand dollars a year plus expenses as a scout.”

“They didn’t waste any time.”

“Cobianco never came to the office while I was there; neither did the others. I just saw the checks,” Lem said. “I called the commissioner’s office about it and the next day somebody slashed all my tires and broke out the windshield of my car. I’m glad to get out without a major injury.”

“A.D. could accomplish the impossible and
really
lose money this year,” Taylor replied. “What does Red say about all the new people?”

“Nothing yet. He’s still got all
his
coaches and scouts in place. If A.D. starts tampering with them, I imagine Red will put up a fight.”

“Does Cyrus ever come in?” Taylor asked.

“Never. Suzy keeps him out at the hot springs. You wouldn’t recognize him. I flew some papers out that had to be signed and all he did was sit there, picking imaginary lint off his bathrobe. Suzy’s got some big Mexican to haul him in and out of bed. I imagine the second Mrs. Chandler will have power of attorney before long. He acts senile, but she’s doping him, keeping him isolated and disoriented. The only time he gets unreasonable or even shows any signs of life is when he watches Billy Joe Hardesty’s
All-American Hour.
Your pal Dudley was on the show the day I was there.”

“Do you ever hear from Dick Conly?” Taylor asked. “You don’t figure Conly would come back and help Cyrus?”

Lem laughed. “Only if he was helping five others carry the old bastard to his grave.”

“Then, there really isn’t anybody to keep Suzy and A.D. and the Cobianco brothers from looting the Franchise?”

“Not unless you want the job,” Lem said. “My call to the commissioner didn’t do anything but cost me a perfectly good set of radial tires and a tinted windshield.”

Taylor hung up the phone.

Wendy must have taken the boy and gone to hide out, Taylor thought. It made him lonely, but he felt safer knowing that they were taking serious precautions.

He wished he knew how to take precautions.

He wished he knew how to be serious.

You can’t take yourself very seriously when you spend your life playing games
, he thought. It is a double bind: playing meaningful and meaningless games. The up and down drove men crazy if they didn’t understand the difference between failing and quitting. That is the secret, Taylor decided: Failure was inevitable but quitting was choice. And guilt was the result of the misunderstanding.

But in the
real game
that A.D., Suzy, the Cobianco brothers and the commissioner were playing, the difference didn’t matter because failures or quitters still ended up dead. Guilt was meaningless.

The real game.

Taylor looked over at the stack of copied documents that he had assembled for the Houston Union meeting.

I might as well trust old Lamar Jean Lukas to get me through tonight,
Taylor decided, and stretched out on the couch in his apartment. He punched the remote control and turned on the television to watch the nightly news for word about the massacre at Dead Man Creek. The face of Harrison H. Harrison filled the screen and Taylor pushed up the volume.

“New York police could establish no motive for the brutal attack on Mr. Harrison, president of Venture Capital Offshore, outside Mr. Harrison’s apartment, where at least five men assaulted him with baseball bats, breaking his arms and legs. Adding to the mystery was the burning of several Greek letters into Mr. Harrison’s forehead. The assailants had what authorities claim was an electric branding iron. The police have not speculated except that the letters were Greek and spelled a slang vulgarity for a portion of the anatomy, but not the forehead. Mr. Harrison is in satisfactory condition at an undisclosed location.”

The television picture cut from the full face of Harrison H. Harrison to the anchorman, who turned to the weatherman.

“Boy, Mario!” the anchor said to the small Chicano weatherman. “It takes all kinds, but New York is getting weirder by the day.”

“Right, Bob, I’ll take Texas any day,” the Chicano grinned. “And especially tomorrow, because I have got a great day in store for all you sun worshipers....”

Taylor clicked off the television. He wasn’t a sun worshiper.

T
AYLOR FOLLOWED I-10
eastbound for Houston. He would stop at Gus Savas’s place in River Oaks and see Ginny and her two youngest boys. Jimmy had joined his older brother attending the University of Texas.

Taylor had the documents on his lap and constantly checked his mirror, pulled off at rest stops and made directionless trips on side roads, trying to see if he was being followed. For all his paranoid effort he didn’t discover any trackers. Nor did he lose them; they had planted a small transmitter in the rear bumper of his car.

At dusk Taylor pulled up to Gus Savas’s sprawling River Oaks home with a false sense of security.

“Uncle Taylor, Uncle Taylor, did you bring us a surprise?” Billy and Bobby Hendrix came running out to meet him and each grabbed a leg. They had grown and changed rapidly, as only children that young can.

“Let me look in the trunk, boys,” Taylor said, trying to move to the back of the car with one clinging to each leg.

“Yeaa! Yeaaa! See, Mom, we
told
you Uncle Taylor would bring us a present!” A slight snottiness crept into the voices, berating their mother for telling them earlier not to expect presents just because Taylor was coming.

Ginny Hendrix stood smiling in the open doorway while Gus stepped out at his stumpy pace; like his grandchildren, he did not want to be left out.

Taylor popped open the trunk and pulled out a microprocessor electronic game.

“Yeeaaa!” the boys squealed. “A ’lectronic game.” They immediately fell to arguing over who would get to claim ownership.

“Hey,” Taylor scolded the squabbling boys, “this game is for your mother. If she wants to let either of you two play with it, you are going to have to ask her and say
please.
You get me, fellas?”

The two boys nodded, then turned and ran to their mother, yelling, “Me first”—“Me first”—“No, me”—“No, me.”

Gus let the boys plead with Ginny while he helped Taylor unload.

“Taylor, my boy, how are you?” The greeting was effusive. Gus hugged the tall quarterback, and for a moment the two men seemed to clutch each other for security, safety. Taylor felt the hard bulk of the Mauser .380 automatic Gus had stuffed in his belt under his shirt.

“It’s gotten pretty weird, Gus.” They released each other. Taylor leaned into the trunk. “Somebody had Tommy McNamara killed. I guess the same people that did Bobby.”

“The Cobianco brothers,” Gus announced, then picked up a Texas Pistols equipment bag. “Tiny Walton was the cameraman on that plane in Cozumel,” Gus said.

“I know. That’s all Bobby’s stuff.” Taylor pointed at the bag Gus had pulled out of the trunk. The bag had
Texas Pistols #88
silkscreened on the side. “I went down and cleaned out his locker. Hide it away somewhere. Ginny and the kids might want it in a few years.”

“I’ll leave it in your trunk”—Gus dropped the bag—“and come get it later.”