The Franchise (58 page)

“Tiny Walton was in on the killing of Tommy McNamara,” Taylor continued, “but there hasn’t been a word about it.” Taylor pointed to his own bag. “I got the documents that they took from Tommy. I guess they killed Bobby thinking he was Tommy’s Deep Threat.”

“Damn Tommy,” Gus said. “He should have known that using a name like that would put the suspicion right on Bobby. But no, the dumbshit has to play Watergate. Stupid shitass sportswriter.” Gus crouched down and unzipped the duffel bag to check the tools of one of the great wide receivers in football. Gus pulled out Hendrix’s big jar of Nutty Putty. Bobby always had had the putty in his hands, squeezing and exercising, turning his fingers into the strongest and surest in the history of the game. All gone now, all that work, effort.

“I’ll bet he wished he’d spent the time teaching himself to fly,” Gus said. “He probably could have done it.”

Gus opened the bottle and shook out the putty while Taylor pulled his bag out of the trunk. Gus dropped the wad of plastic under the yellow Lincoln. Stretching to reach the putty, Gus turned and saw the transmitter stuck under the bumper.

Gus stopped and looked closer. He had seen lots of bugging devices and electronic eavesdropping gear. In the oil business, espionage is much of the trade. “You got a traveling companion under here.”

Taylor knelt down and looked under the bumper; the little black transmitter was attached by a magnet. Taylor reached for it, but Gus grabbed his arm.

Gus put the putty back into Bobby’s old equipment bag and slammed the trunk shut. “I don’t see them. Probably around the corner, out of sight, just listening to the beeper.” He looked up and down the street. “You go on inside while I put your car in my garage.” Gus’s eyes blazed for a moment. “Did you hear about the terrible accident that Harrison H. Harrison had right outside his fancy-pants apartment?”

“It was on television.” Taylor nodded. “What Greek letters did they brand on his forehead?”

“Asshole
would be the closest translation in English, but it means more than just that.” Gus walked around to the driver’s side of Taylor’s car, jerked open the door and slid behind the wheel. “That’s the breaks in the oil business.”

“While you’re in the garage, take out Bobby’s bag and stash it.”

Taylor turned up the walk to the front double doors of the sprawling white brick mansion. He had his bag in one hand and the game under his arm. The two boys waited on either side of their mother, hopping up and down.

“Please. Please. Momma.” They each pleaded. “Please. Please, Momma. Please. Please.”

It took about twenty-five minutes to find a television set and hook up the game. Taylor had brought game tapes that simulated tank battles, an invasion by space aliens, baseball and spelling. Shortly the room reverberated with bleeps, bloops and roars of electronic battles punctuated by the screams and cries of the two boys fighting colored dots on the television screen and each other and themselves.

Ginny frowned at Taylor when the bleeping and squalling and screeching reached a particularly feverish pitch.

“Thanks, Uncle Taylor,” she said. “At least maybe now they will forget about how you and their daddy killed Hitler and Mussolini and won World War Two.”

“We may have to win World War Three before this is all over, Ginny.” Taylor leaned over, kissed her cheek and hugged her. She wiped tears from her eyes when he released her.

“It’s funny”—Ginny was sniffing—“when you called to say you were coming, I had this thought that when you arrived, Bobby would be with you and everything that happened in Mexico would have been a dream.” She wiped her eyes. “But here you are all alone. It’s hard to believe he’s gone forever. Real hard.”

A door opened and closed in the back of the house somewhere and Gus walked into the big living room. He had the transmitter in his hand.

“Your car is locked up safely in the garage.” Gus sat down in his favorite leather chair. “I have one of my men on the way over.”

The boys started fighting and yelling from the den. Ginny went in to referee the struggle with the alien invaders.

“I called the River Oaks security,” Gus continued. “Whoever is following you won’t be able to park around here all night; the security boys will keep them moving and off balance. When my man gets here, he’ll take the transmitter into the bayous. He’s got some kinfolks in Vidor that just flat don’t like outsiders. And believe me, Vidor takes it all pretty serious.”

Taylor watched the three people in the den arguing about whose turn it was to kill the alien invader.

“How have they been taking Bobby’s death?”

“Okay, I guess.” Gus stared at the door to the den. “I probably took it worse. They never saw Bobby; I wouldn’t let Ginny open the casket. Maybe that was a mistake, maybe you’re supposed to see the dead so you
know
that they’re dead. But Jesus, he looked a whole lot more than dead; he was smashed to fucking pulp. Just sort of exploded when he hit those ruins. Some American there said pieces of Bobby flew all over. He hit near the top, directly on a sacrificial stone. The guy said Bobby never made a sound, not a scream. Nothing. He just fell and hit like a ripe watermelon.” Gus looked at Taylor. “I couldn’t let them open the casket, there was nothing in there but a bag of mush. Ginny was mad at me for a long time for not letting her see Bobby. But it’s better that she remember him alive. Don’t ever live long enough to bury your children.” Gus turned his dark Greek face to Taylor. His eyes were blazing black coals of hatred. “A.D. Koster and Charlie Stillman and Robbie Burden were all there on Cobianco’s boat when it happened. Stillman was in the plane and that goddam sleazy low-life son of a bitch Kimball Adams was the one who took Bobby to the airport....”

“I don’t think Kimball knew what they had planned,” Taylor said. “I found him two or three days later, a blubbering, heartbroken drunk. They just used him.”

“Yeah,” Gus said angrily, “and they still use him. Being weak and stupid isn’t a defense, Taylor. Don’t ever forget that. If I live long enough, I’m going to settle the scores. Harrison H. Harrison was only the first, and that was just for fucking me and Bobby on an oil deal.” Gus held up a clenched fist. Taylor was surprised by the size. It was a formidable weapon.

Gus continued to hold up the clenched fist. “I know it was Tiny Walton, but for who?” Gus hit the arm of his chair. “I’d like ten minutes alone with that little weasel and we’ll find out real quick why he threw Bobby out. Did Tommy tell you anything?”

“Tommy didn’t last long,” Taylor said. “I don’t know who his source was.”

The doorbell rang. Gus jumped quickly from his chair and walked out of the room, holding the small transmitter. He returned empty-handed. “My man’s got a Lincoln just like yours, maybe a year or two newer. Whoever was following you is going to find themselves at the end of a very long dirt road in the middle of the Thicket, surrounded by a lot of guys in white sheets, toting shotguns and pistols.”

“You look okay financially.” Taylor looked around at the opulent interior of the River Oaks mansion. “Still rich?”

“Naw, not since the VCO bust out. Now I am highly levered.” Gus smiled and raised his bushy black eyebrows. “I’m into the banks for so much, they got to keep me afloat if they ever hope to get
any
money back.”

The electronic war continued in the den until late that night.

The next morning, on his way to the Union meeting, Taylor’s car radio told the news of two men arrested stark naked on the Eastex Freeway. He guessed they were agents of Investico sent by J. Edgar Jones.

Taylor Rusk was now certain that Robbie Burden had him listed as “off the reservation.”

The first meeting had already begun when Taylor arrived at the hotel. He sat in the back of the big ballroom. Terry Dudley recited the history of the early labor wars in the League, invoking Bobby Hendrix as a classic labor martyr. In closing, one of the players who had been blacklisted himself for Union work pointed out that Bobby Hendrix had died under very mysterious circumstances.

“We are talking about serious sums of money here,” the player said. “People have been killed for less. It may be time to pick up the gun.”

The room fell silent, and the only sound was the squeak of the player’s shoes as he returned to his seat on the dais. No one spoke. Nobody moved.

Time to pick up the gun?

The room full of men who had spent their entire working lives honing their exquisite skills of violence were struck dumb by the thought that they might have to use violence to gain their union goals. It confused some and frightened many, but the ex-player knew what he was saying and why.

So did Taylor Rusk. So had Bobby Hendrix.

“Think of yourself as a coal miner, Taylor,” Hendrix had said. “And professional football is the Harlan County of your mind.”

“S
OLIDARITY IS THE WORD.
We start to lose this battle when we are not unified,” Union Director Terry Dudley said. “This will be a fight and we must be
ready
to strike,
organized
to strike, not
afraid
to strike. Solidarity.” He hit the podium with a clenched fist. “Organize or Die. Strike or Die.”

“They don’t own, they
promote
, football games. The only people with the requisite skill to play the game are you people right here in this room.” The tall man pointed out at the meeting room full of players. “You are the best, the finest, football players in the world, and without your skills there would
be
no football. But we are fast approaching the time when your exceptional skills will not be quite so necessary. Let me quote you some figures and see if you understand.” The tall man in his blue blazer, gray pants and black loafers gripped the sides of the podium with his slender fingers. Strands of hair curled along his forehead. “Ninety percent of all seats to all professional football games were sold last year. Most teams sell out every game whether they have a winning or losing season. Some of the worst teams in the League have
no tickets
available for the general public.
None.
They have been sold out for years, although they haven’t had a winning season since Ike was in the White House.

“The incentive to win, to compete, exists for players and coaches but does not exist for the promoter. You notice I call him the
promoter.
And he is often a
great
promoter. The League hypes the draft and idolizes the number-one pick and explains that by letting the last team pick first the level of competition stays even. That of course is pure bullshit perpetuated by Robbie Burden, our beloved commissioner, in order to keep the draft in place and players’ salaries depressed.”

The director wiped his hand across his creased forehead, pushing the hair back. Regaining his hold on the podium, he leaned forward.

“The truth is that the draft serves
no other purpose
, and if you aren’t drafted in the first couple rounds, it’s a much better deal
not to be drafted at all.
Because in reality you’re not drafted, you’re taken prisoner. The number-one pick has some leverage because the
promoter
will look stupid if he doesn’t get his number one. But much lower than number one or two and your bargaining power disappears—and you learn the first reality of the game. The promoter has perpetual rights to you and perpetual is a long time. There is no other labor market. It is what economists call a monopsony.”

Terry Dudley was beginning to work himself up. His was the final talk of the morning session.

“Canadian football? You can try it, but they only have eight teams and each team is only allowed fifteen Americans; and besides, the Canadian Football Conference is in bed with our league. The commonality of interests between rich-men promoters runs much closer than any fellowship they feel for
you.
They consider you
property.
You are their
tax shelters.”

The director of the Union stopped and looked around the room, letting what he had said sink in. His blue eyes scanned the upturned faces, more black than white.

“Competition?” Terry began again. “Oh, there’s competition all right, but it’s not between the
promoters,
it’s between you guys for the fifteen hundred spots, the only fifteen hundred jobs in the world that are available to you. And you have to
break your ass
to get one of those jobs. The
promoters
don’t have to compete. Winning and losing has little bearing on profitability.

“Network television pays each team
eleven million dollars a year
on their new contract. The highest team expenses calculated on the sketchy figures they give us is only five million dollars. They are six million dollars in the black and they haven’t sold a ticket at the gate yet. Add ticket sales of, let’s say, five million dollars, on the low side. Now the team has thirteen million dollars gross before-tax profit.”

Terry quickly scanned the faces of the crowd. He feared the numbers parts of his speeches—they always seemed to lose the audience a little—so he pushed through them quickly.

“Now, the promoters have other expenses. Dallas claims it costs them $150,000 to scout, draft, sign and train each member of its franchise, but remember, that’s money that is really just moving from one part of the franchise to another. Stadium rentals? Most teams play in municipal or city stadiums that are tax supported and usually get a discounted rent. A few teams own their own stadiums, which allows them to charge whatever rent they please, depending on each year’s tax situation.

“The Texas Pistols Dome financing scheme may be the most ingenious scheme I have seen yet. The fans must first finance the domed stadium before they can buy a ticket. And only a select few know what sort of tax break the city of Clyde, Texas, is giving the Pistols franchise to move a few miles south. Taxes that someone else will have to make up.

“I haven’t even tried to list the other sources of income to the promoters, like parking, programs, concessions, licensing agreements through the privately held Football League Properties, Incorporated. They are substantial amounts, but the main income to a franchise is its monopoly rights on television and gate receipts. Its monopsonistic rights on labor allow it to control the Franchise’s major cost: player salaries.”