by Peter Gent
At the Pi Phi house Louise Francine Buffy Martin was crying again. She and Wendy Cy Chandler got in the rear door on the driver’s side. Taylor had gotten out on the passenger side, thinking Buffy would want to sit with Simon. She didn’t. She wanted to sit in back and cry. Wendy tried to comfort her. Simon headed the Pontiac north into the night.
The interstate was almost finished, but suburbs didn’t yet sprawl all the way from the Rio Grande to the Red River, and they got out in the country pretty quickly. After about an hour Taylor looked into the backseat and thought Wendy Chandler glared at him, although he couldn’t be sure in the bewitching light. He stole more glances with only moonlight to help him. All he saw were two shadow shapes.
Buffy sobbed all the way to the Red River.
Taylor slouched in the seat and tried to sleep. It gave him a stiff neck that nagged him for the next forty-eight hours. His nose still hurt when he frowned, and he was frowning plenty.
Wendy Cy Chandler calmed Buffy and talked up the positive side of elopement: “It cuts through all the bullshit.” Taylor wondered what bullshit and how Wendy knew.
At daybreak in Hugo, Oklahoma, they found a justice of the peace at a cafe. He waived the blood test and married them right there at the table. He also served them breakfast. All for fifteen dollars.
Buffy stopped sobbing when the food arrived.
The honeymoon seemed to start when Simon and Buffy began making out in the cafe over coffee. Wendy Chandler relaxed and Taylor saw her for the first time.
It was as if she had been able to keep him from really seeing her until she was ready. That was what he had seen inside the moonlit car—the warning not to see.
The justice of the peace went to get more biscuits; the friendly middle-aged man with six kids also ran the self-serve gas station next door. The door to the kitchen banged shut. Wendy Cy Chandler took one long last look at Buffy and Simon, then turned to Taylor.
“They are each other’s problem now.” She managed a weak smile.
“I guess that’s what it’s all about.” Taylor slouched as he always did and kept his head low. Furniture was not designed for people six feet five inches tall. He leaned with his elbows on the table and peered over the lip of his coffee cup at Wendy. She was smaller than he had thought. Her presence had seemed much larger in that dark car under that huge moon and sky. In a lighted empty cafe, sharply defined against the blue-and-white-checked wallpaper and tablecloths, chairs and tables, salt and pepper shakers and of course Buffy and Simon, Wendy seemed small and pale. Her dishwater hair was pinned up in a hurried twist, wisps floated weightlessly out from her face. Her skin was transparent. She almost wasn’t there. At five-foot-three and one hundred pounds there was a certain amount of will involved in being seen. Wendy Chandler was of strong will, like her grandfather, Amos, and she had willed herself to be delicate and beautiful.
She was.
Her eyes were the palest blue as she fixed them on Taylor. She looked like a porcelain figure in faded jeans, a red and yellow plaid flannel shirt and squaw boots. She sat cross-legged in the chair; her spidery fingers rested on her knees—a finespun, perfect miniature.
Taylor kept his head below her eyeline and smiled at her.
“Look what I found.” The JP came out of the kitchen, clutching a large industrial mayonnaise jar full of a light-purple fluid. “Mustang grape wine—made it myself. We’ll toast the bride and groom. Ought to be plenty good.” He had a fistful of water glasses. One for everyone but himself. “I just make it for the hell of it. I haven’t had a drink since the big war,” he explained. “I almost killed an MP in Oakland.” He placed the glasses and poured. “I was a twenty-one-year-old Marine back from eighteen months in the South Pacific. I promised the good Lord if he’d let the MP live I’d never touch another drop. Now I don’t drink and I drive a Jap car. Kinda makes you wonder.... Maybe I should have kept drinking and let the MP die. What do you think?”
“I don’t think,” Taylor said. “I react.”
“Me too,” the justice of the peace said. “It’s how I damn near killed the MP.”
“Well,” Wendy announced, “if I’m having a drink before eight in the morning, I’m sure as hell going to take out my contacts first. Last time I passed out and welded them right to my eyes.”
She leaned forward, her slender fingers working quickly, deftly. She popped out the contacts and tossed them onto her tongue, kept them in her mouth while searching her purse for her lens case and glasses. She found her gold-rimmed glasses, put them on and looked at Taylor again. Her eyes were an even paler blue. It took Taylor a long time to realize the contacts were tinted.
They all had two big glassfuls of mustang grape wine, toasting the bride and groom. The JP made them eat more biscuits and drink coffee before he would let them leave.
They all felt great. It was spring and they were young. Taylor paid the bill as the others walked out into the day.
“Have a nice day.” The JP’s shirt hiked up, exposing a pistol butt.
Taylor nodded, pushed the screen door open and stepped outside.
Just across the Texas line they stopped at the Armadillo Ranch and Gift Shop. Simon and Buffy walked in back by a scroungy lonely buffalo in a wire pen. Taylor went into the gift shop and bought Wendy a Picasso print silk scarf. “A gift for the maid of honor,” he said.
They walked out to the caliche parking lot. Wendy leaned against the post supporting the red and white sign offering free looks at the forlorn buffalo. She held the scarf up and the North Texas warm spring wind rippled bright Picasso colors. It reminded Taylor of watching the heat rise at a morning workout.
Taylor struggled to think of things to say, but Wendy, her face turned to the late morning sun, beat him to it. “My father intends to buy you. Did you know that?”
“Who’s your father?” Taylor feigned ignorance. He didn’t know why.
“Cyrus Chandler. He’s going to get the new football franchise and he intends to buy you first. He says you won the Heisman Trophy, whatever that is, and you are good local box office.” She looked flatly at Taylor, watching him intently through the round gold-rimmed glasses. The print scarf flapped in the wind.
“And?” Taylor turned into the sun and closed his eyes. He let the sun soak his face.
“And,” Wendy said, “how do you feel about it?”
“Don’t know yet. I haven’t heard his price. Besides, he doesn’t have that franchise yet. The League isn’t anxious to share.”
“They will be after Dick Conly finishes with them.” Wendy smiled. “Well, how do you feel about being owned?”
“Just like any old dog, I guess. It ain’t the being owned; it’s the owner that matters.”
“Does Daddy pay well?”
“For me he should,” Taylor said, “if the Franchise takes me in the first round. They all want to sign their number-one pick or they look stupid. After the third round it’s like being taken prisoner. I’ve got a guy negotiating for me. I’ve never been injured. I’ll do all right and your daddy’ll do terrific. Quarterbacks have been known to play ten or fifteen years, depending on the line and the system. Owners can play forever; it’s their ball. Which I guess means it will eventually be yours. Do you want it?”
Wendy smiled. “Do you stay in the bargain?”
“Only if we use my balls,” Taylor replied, “and I get to keep them both.”
“What if Daddy and Dick Conly get them first?”
“Lots of folks have tried.” Taylor tried to look back into Wendy’s pale blue eyes, but the sun’s afterimage blurred the vision. “They may well have succeeded. It gets to where you can’t keep track of the rules. Fortunately for me, the University doesn’t follow the rules, and six hundred dollars shows up in my mailbox on the first of each month with no return address. Does that mean they’ve got me?”
“They pay you to play for the University?” Wendy was surprised. “You don’t think that’s immoral, an insult to your integrity?”
/> “Immoral? No. I have discovered that what most people consider to be their moral code turns out to merely be their budget. I’d be insulted only if the cash fails to arrive: Only a fool would put up with all the shit for nothing. Amateur sports ends as soon as you pay the coach, and his morals are limited strictly by his budget. I know a basketball player who finds money in his street shoes after every game.”
“But ...”
“Look, for four years the University used me like a rent-a-car. Criminal Conspiracy 101 should be a phys-ed class. I’ve been a professional since high school, and I want to end up with more than mythical titles and a few thousand from the University slush fund. If you want to protect your daddy’s investment, I guess you better go ahead and search me.” Taylor held his arms out. “Make sure Red Kilroy or the Park City coach didn’t get something you want.”
“No, thanks.” Wendy’s expression changed to disapproval.
“No, really, frisk me for scars, soft spots, unexplained lumps, sores, swelling, missing parts. Stigmata. Report to Cyrus that I am a fine specimen who demands only a continuing illusion that sports is a rite of passage and big bucks to convince me I’m getting close to the top.” Taylor looked over at Wendy and enjoyed her puzzlement. “I want to be an athlete, which is not always compatible with being a football player.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means your daddy can learn to like me as a tax exemption.”
“My daddy’s favorite exemption happens to be me.”
Taylor still faced the sun.
“You have a boyfriend?”
“I’m engaged.”
“In what? I didn’t see any ring.”
“We’re going to Neiman’s to get it next week.” Wendy’s tone changed. She was irritated. “We were going to get the ring tomorrow, but Lem is going to be at the Tower tonight. He’s been tapped by Spur.”
“Spur?” Taylor picked up a limestone pebble and bounced it off the billboard.
“You don’t know Spur?” Wendy couldn’t believe Taylor Rusk was that simple. “You’ve never heard of it?”
“Vaguely,” Taylor said. “I heard of it somewhere....”
“Well, it’s the club to belong to. Every spring they pick only the top ten senior men.” Wendy looked closely at Taylor. “Once in Spur, lots of doors open—not just at the University, but downtown too. All over the world. My father was president of Spur back in 1939. The governor was a member then. Senator Thompson and Harrison H. Harrison.” She looked at Taylor’s blank face. He smiled. She did not and he detected pity in the look and in her voice. “Well, they’re being tapped tonight at the Tower at midnight.” Wendy smiled. “I’m not supposed to know, but Lem can’t keep anything from me.”
“Tonight, huh?” Taylor said.
“Tonight.”
“And your fiancé will be there? What’s his full name?”
“Lem Carleton III. Everybody calls him Three. His daddy, Lem Carleton, Jr., is regents chairman. Lem Three is president of the IFC.”
“The IFC?” Taylor saw no reason to reveal his peculiar relationship with Lem junior. Lem Three was a better subject. “IFC?”
“The Interfraternity Council,” Wendy explained. “Don’t you know anything?”
“You think it helped ol’ Lem getting into Spur because his daddy is the regents chairman?”
“Maybe in the short run.” Wendy was irritated by Taylor’s question. “But they’re the ten top men, and being one of them means guaranteed success in the long run.”
“You talk like everybody gets a long run. Some people have very short runs. The ten top onions,” Taylor said, laughing, “on a short run.”
Wendy gave in and they both laughed hard. The wind blew caliche dust clouds around them and the spring sun baked them. They felt good and strong, almost content. “Are you the kind of person who forgives but never forgets? Or forgets but never forgives?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” She reached up and touched the red welt between Taylor’s eyes. “How did you get that scar?” Gently she stroked the violet slash between his eyes. Her touch enfeebled him.
“The corn picker got me.”
“The corn picker?”
“Actually it was a Grapette bottle.” Taylor’s voice quivered. “It’s a long story.” His insides shivered and he leaned against the billboard for support.
“The kind of person who forgives but never forgets?” She repeated his question. “Or the kind who forgets but never forgives?”
She didn’t answer.
Taylor drove south from the Armadillo Ranch and Gift Shop. Buffy and Simon were in the backseat. Wendy sat fragilely against the door. Taylor constantly kept her in his peripheral vision and studied her movements. He watched how at times she surreptitiously studied him.
The sky was cobalt blue. Herds of fluffy cumulus clouds were skidded by the hard spring winds, covering and uncovering the sun. The plains rolled endlessly in all directions. It was a long drive to the city. Simon and Buffy fell asleep. Simon snored.
“I wonder if she knows he snores?”
“Does it matter now?” Wendy stifled a yawn. She held the back of her delicate hand against her full lips, her slim fingers curled out. The tendons stood out from her long slender neck, accentuating its length and the long sweep from her erect shoulders to her slightly pointed chin.
“I think everything matters now. It’s live scrimmage for the rest of their natural lives.” Taylor quickly shnigged himself out of his tan jacket as Wendy began to drop off to sleep. “Here, use this as a pillow.”
“No. No. I’m okay,” she said, yawning and stretching. Catlike.
Taylor’s eyes were dry and sore. He folded his jacket and handed it to her. She held it against her chest, stared straight ahead vacantly, then placed the jacket across Taylor’s thigh, lay her head down, pulling her legs up on the seat, pushing her stockinged feet against the door. She was instantly asleep. She looked even smaller curled up next to Taylor. The weight of her pressing on his leg was pleasant.
Taylor turned off the main road and followed the Trinity Bottom riverbreaks, where in the 1860’s Sam Bass and his Denton Mare hid from the railroad law. Finally betrayed and gut shot from ambush in Round Rock, Sam took two days to die. One hundred years later they still had a week-long celebration of the bushwhacking, complete with rodeo and barbeque.
Been dead over a century and still good for business, Taylor thought. Another notch on the Sun Belt.
The Pontiac rolled south from Oklahoma with Simon D’Hanis and his new wife, Buffy, in the backseat and Cyrus Chandler’s daughter, Wendy, curled up with her head on Taylor’s jacket, the jacket on his thigh. Taylor wanted to stroke the fine-boned face, but he kept his big hand on the wheel. Add a Pi Phi to the load he was carrying now and it was almost certain disaster. The catastrophic.
But Taylor did decide to take one extra chance that warm spring afternoon of his senior year at the University. The big quarterback decided to take an onion to the Tower at midnight.
The ten top onions were expected. He had to take a look and see.
THE COBIANCO BROTHERS
A.D. KOSTER WAS leaving the apartment when the Cobianco brothers drove their black Lincoln into the parking lot.
“Hey, little buddy.” It was Don Cobianco, at forty-four the oldest and biggest of the three brothers. His six-foot-four-inch, two-hundred-fifty-pound bulk was stretched out on the black leather backseat behind the driver, twenty-eight-year-old Johnny, his baby brother. Johnny was about six foot two, two hundred twenty. Roger was on the passenger side and was somewhere in between Johnny and Don in size and age.
The Lincoln full of Cobianco brothers cut A.D. off from his car.
“We want to talk to you, little buddy,” Don continued. His electric window hummed down and out of sight. Johnny’s window was already open.
A.D. thought a moment about running but dismissed that as unbecoming and most likely unsuccessful. Like the Comanche, the Cob
ianco brothers loved a man on the run. They were keen on the smell of blood.
A.D. walked slowly up to the car.
Sitting in the backseat, Don Cobianco ran his index finger back and forth across his thick dark eyebrow while keeping his thumb on his stubbly cheek, effectively hiding his face.
All the brothers had the same facial features. Thick, dark hair curling all over huge square heads; heavy beards with constant five-o’clock shadows; small, black, deepset eyes flashing dark under heavy brows, aborted Roman noses, fist-flattened and scarred. The bulbous, fleshy dimpled chins were especially sinister. Full red lips. Capped very large teeth. Hard, mean men in ill-fitting polyester leisure suits.
The Cobianco brothers had started out as Teamsters, then had moved in on the building trades and small real estate developers around the University. They carried the book for the city and ran most of the prostitution and drugs. From union trouble on down to shylock deadbeats, the Cobianco brothers handled it. A.D. Koster fit in there somewhere; now he was about to learn exactly where.
Next to Don sat Tiny Walton, a Cobianco “associate” who did their wet work, most recently a nineteen-year-old coed hooker that an ambitious US attorney had been squeezing against the brothers.
The US attorney had subpoenaed her in front of a grand jury, immunized her and taken away her Fifth Amendment rights. The coed prostitute had to either testify or go to jail for contempt. The judge gave the pretty young girl the weekend to think it over.
Tiny arrived that Sunday, cut her up in the bathtub of her efficiency apartment and used the trash compactor to reduce the teen-age carnage to a neat, square plastic-lined brown paper bag. Tiny left her in the dumpster behind the apartment house. The trash collector picked her up promptly at six the next morning.
The US attorney said she had fled and issued a warrant for her arrest. Two months later he was appointed a federal judge and completely dismissed her from his mind. A busy man, he had politicians to protect.