by Peter Gent
A glint caught Taylor’s eyes, pulling them away from the coach’s face. He resisted, not wanting to be off balance against Red’s counterattack, but Red’s eyes fell sadly to the telephone in his hand. Cyrus Chandler was on the other end—on the line direct to the New York owner’s private air-conditioned suite where Cyrus Chandler was a guest. The suite had a wet bar, white-coated bartenders, carpeting, heavy leather swivel chairs. It was extremely civilized.
Surrounded by his well-fed and -wined friends, Cyrus told his head coach to put Taylor Rusk in the game because he wanted to show what the Pistols planned to build the Franchise around.
On the field the New York-Texas game was a war of attrition; destruction and vengeance the game plan. There was no winner, only survivors.
“Goddam, can’t somebody get the middle linebacker?” Bobby Hendrix pleaded, dabbing his bleeding nose and mouth. “That’s the third time he’s clotheslined me.”
“I could send Amos,” Kimball said. “What do you think, Amos?” The huddle turned to the blocking back. Amos Burns’s dark eyes looked out from under his black, wet, deeply wrinkled brow.
“I can get him, but if I don’t put him out, he’s gonna know you sent me.” Amos looked at Kimball. “I’ll hurt him, Kimball, but I can’t promise he won’t be back, looking for you.”
“I’ll get him,” Simon D’Hanis said. “We’ll see how bad this joker wants to bump heads. Gimme a pass-over block with opposite influence.”
“Okay! Ninety-three opposite G pull influence!” Kimball ordered. “On two.”
The huddle broke. The teams took up their positions.
“I’m making an inside handoff, Amos,” Kimball told the big back. “After I give you the ball, you veer. I’m getting the hell away.”
Amos Burns grinned.
Kimball called the defensive set; the Pistols’ center called the line blocking odd; the New York lineman played the gaps. The linebackers came around, faking a blitz. Kimball knew they weren’t coming, though—the safeties were too deep—but he called out a dummy audible so they’d wonder if he bought the fake.
On the snap Kimball Adams whirled quickly, slamming the ball into Amos Burns’s stomach. The ninety-three opposite-influence blocking worked well against defenses that read and pursued. New York read pulls, and both of their tackles were chasing the pulling Pistols linemen, leading Danny Lewis flaring on what could be either a pitchout, power sweep or screen pass.
It was none of those.
Amos Bums was through the holes left in the line of scrimmage by the New York pursuit.
The middle linebacker took the influence fake and the two steps necessary to remove him from the play. A furious competitor, he knew Amos had beat him through the hole, but he reached desperately to grasp at the stocky back.
Dig down, he was told over and over. Dig down. The middle linebacker dug down.
He never saw Simon coming.
Simon saw the opening under the helmet cage and, using his own headgear, hit him high, trying to tear his face off. The collision echoed across the field, and players on both teams turned to see. It was a familiar sound: demolition.
The middle linebacker was sprawled out on his back. His helmet flew off and it looked like his head was still in it. His face had bones sticking out of it. Every time he exhaled, blood bubbled from a hole beneath his eye.
Simon staggered back to the next huddle.
Bums had gained six yards.
Up in the air-conditioned owner’s suite, Cyrus was on the phone, instructing Red Kilroy to put Taylor Rusk in the game.
“Have him throw some to the nigger speed-burner,” Cyrus said. “Then tell him to hit Hendrix with a few so I can show these assholes up here what we stole off the blacklist.” Cyrus Chandler laughed and rolled the big cigar around in his mouth. Dick Conly sat tight-lipped next to him. Wendy sat next to Dick.
Lem Three was drinking double martinis, trying to forget how Cyrus had screamed at him in the hotel lobby because the buses were late at the airport and the room keys were not sorted correctly.
Wendy poked Dick Conly. “Stop him, Dick.”
“Why?” Conly said, “There’s always the chance he’ll step on his own cock and break his neck. Can’t stop a man from making an ass of himself. All you can do is refuse to kiss it.”
“Please stop him,” Wendy urged. She turned to Lem. “You tell him, Lem.”
Lem rocked forward and almost fell to the floor; Wendy helped him regain his balance. He looked down at Dick. “She’s right, Dick, do whatever she says. I’m telling you, she’s always right. This is the best woman ... person ... the best in the world ... but how was I supposed to know that those dumb fucks can’t check into a hotel on their own or that the bus drivers would get lost? Christ! I did my best.” Lem’s eyes reddened.
“Hush now, Lem.” Wendy patted his leg. “Lean back.” Then she turned back to Conly. “Tell him or I tell him.”
“You think he’ll listen?” Dick stared at the field, watching Red and the quarterback standing by the phone. “To me? To you? Shit, he didn’t listen to Amos! Every son of a bitch in the Southwest listened to Amos Chandler except his own son.”
“Whaaat?” Cyrus’s voice quivered, a sign of real strain. “He said what?” Cyrus quickly regained his voice control. He switched the phone to his right hand, knuckles white. “Put that son of a bitch on the phone.”
Wendy looked down to the field. Taylor Rusk in his spanking-clean uniform was taking the phone.
“Now listen to me, mister!” Cyrus began yelling. His grip on the phone caused it to shake.
Dick elbowed Wendy to make certain she saw that Taylor now had the phone to his ear. She nodded. Conly’s nose flared as he suppressed a grin; his eyes rolled. They both watched the quarterback in the bright white uniform standing at the phone table, holding the receiver.
Wendy put her binoculars on Taylor. His face was totally devoid of emotion, like a man refusing a telephone magazine subscription.
“I own this ball club, fella, and ...”
Wendy watched as Taylor reached out and snatched the tape shears from the trainer’s scabbard. The quarterback held up the receiver and cut the cord. He took the receiver with him back to his spot on the bench between two big linemen. They had saved him a lined parka.
“Goddam you! ... Goddam son of a bitch! Football-player asshole!” Cyrus raged into the dead line. “I own you.... I’ll bury you!”
The New York owner laughed until he cried. A reaction that drove Cyrus almost crazy.
Dick winked at Wendy, then leaned over. “Cyrus,” he asked, “you sure you dialed the right number?”
Taylor Rusk didn’t play that day; he kept the telephone receiver and hung it over his dresser mirror in the bedroom where he used the Heisman Trophy as a doorstop.
THE AQUARIAN
WENDY CHANDLER CARLETON’S labor pains began at midnight. One hour and thirty minutes after arriving at the hospital, she gave birth to an eight pound eleven ounce boy.
Cyrus and Junie wanted to name him Cyrus Junior Carleton or “Bubba,” while Lem junior, Lem Three and Pearl Mae Carleton were holding out for Lem IV or “Four.”
Wendy named the boy Randall Ryan—the last names of the maternity nurse and her aide, who were more helpful and supportive the last hour and a half than were all the rest combined during the whole nine months of Wendy’s pregnancy.
Randall Ryan Carleton was Aquarian.
Cyrus claimed Aquarians were good lawyers and politicians. Junie was convinced they were pessimistic because her sister, Wanda Jane, had married a very pessimistic Aquarian.
Junior and Pearl Mae thought he would probably be an artist or musician.
Dick Conly saw the Aquarian as a way out of his own dilemma.
Red Kilroy told Taylor about the boy when he called him in to play a few off-season mind games.
“My reading of the zodiac,” Red explained, “says this boy’s got good legs.”
THE MAN FROM NEW ORLE
ANS
IT HAD RAINED hard around Sam. Now the Quarter glistened black and gray in the mist and clouds of dawn. He liked the wet darkness of the swamp, the city squatting on the ooze. Pulling the heavy red velvet drape from the window, he hooked it over the bronze gargoyle, then sat in his heavy oak straight-back chair with hand-carved elaborately scrolled arms and claw feet.
The chair and drape and most of the interior furnishings of the grand house were from the French Period.
The house, built during the American Period, was Victorian, painted white and green, three stories with bays and extended verandas and second-story porches. The wrought-iron fence and gate were forged during the Spanish Period. The help was African. The Man was Lebanese.
New Orleans was his place in the world. He knew it the moment he arrived from the desert through Mexico. Years ago with Amos Chandler. Hard years but good years, well worth the effort.
He stared out the bay window down Royal Street at the dismal morning, dripping wrought-iron balconies and peeling white paint. The mist came and went. He wanted hard rain and black clouds all day; then he would sit in the chair and stare from dawn to dawn.
She was the city in the swamp.
He was the Man from New Orleans.
And there was a knock at his door.
“Sir, Mr. Kazan?” He heard Cisco rap lightly again on the door. “It’s Mr. Conly on the private number.”
“Fine, Cisco, put him through.” The Man picked up the phone. “Yes, Richard, my dear friend?” He paused, listened and nodded. “This has to do with Marconi’s problem. I hate to see those kinds of fights, but all is not lost if you get some gain. Memphis and Phoenix are the core of Marconi’s support. You’ll have their proxy at the owner’s meeting. When they go with you, the handwriting will be on the wall.”
The Man listened and smiled.
“Always my pleasure, Dick.”
The rain picked up and the call ended.
The League Owners meeting at La Coste Country Club had two major items on the agenda. The question of the LA franchise and the awarding of the next three years’ worth of Super Bowls. After the presentation of evidence against Marconi’s daughter by J. Edgar Jones of Investico, the owners talked and smoked and conferred. Dick Conly broke the stalemate by providing the proxies of the Memphis and Phoenix teams, helping Commissioner Burden and the West Coast owners finally force the Marconi interests completely out of the Los Angeles franchise. They then voted to secure it for one Richard Portus, a twenty-one-year-old graduate of the University. Portus’s father was an oil-man friend of Cyrus Chandler, and Conly helped to secure the LA franchise for Portus.
In return the Texas Pistols were named to host the Super Bowl in three years.
Now all Dick Conly had to do was build a stadium for the game.
DICK’S DOME:
THE TEN-CENT DOLLAR REVISITED
“ONCE WE AMORTIZE the player costs of the purchase price of the Franchise and lose the depreciation, we’re going to show a positive cash flow unless we do something,” Dick Conly said. “The television money is going to be unbelievable. We’ve got to find some shelter.”
“Any ideas?” Cyrus Chandler sat behind his half-full glass of bourbon.
“A couple.” Dick Conly dug a shaking hand into the stainless-steel ice bucket, then dropped the cubes into the whiskey. “We form a trust for your new grandson and move ten percent of the Franchise in every year. We would appoint and control the trustees. It would reduce the tax exposure and it’d allow you to offer Red the ownership position that he wants. Give him two and a half percent and he’d have a reason to help keep down player costs.”
“Whoa!” Cyrus sat up. “I told him maybe if we got to the Super Bowl I would reconsider.”
“He would be easier to control if he had something to lose besides his job.”
Cyrus shook his head. “Go ahead and set up Randall’s trust, but hold off on Red. I want to think.”
“Every time you think, it costs us money.”
“I want to ...”
“You go ahead and think, Cyrus. Meanwhile in three years we host the Super Bowl,” Conly explained. “And between now and then we build a stadium.”
“We just got University Stadium,” Cyrus protested. “Why spend the money to build one?”
“We’ll be spending someone else’s money, first of all. And second of all, with our own stadium we are vertically integrated. We can move the money around a lot easier, without even considering our radio network and the television plan,” Conly said. “Depending on where we want the income to show up, we charge rent and split parking and concessions accordingly. We’ll finance it through bond sales too. They have to buy bonds before they can buy season tickets. We pay the bondholders about three percent interest with an option to buy the bonds back at face value in thirty years.”
“With ten-cent dollars,” Cyrus added.
Dick Conly often used inflation in player negotiations, deferring large contract payments into the twenty-first century, expensing the full amount currently. Now they were planning to do it to the fans.
“We’ll put it outside the city in one of those little suburbs to the south—maybe Clyde.”
Cyrus was puzzled but interested in the plan. It was another Dick Conly money-making scheme using OPM.
“South to Clyde for two reasons.” Dick had poured another drink and was sketching out some rough figures on a cocktail napkin. “First, the city is going to grow south when the new airport is built out past Clyde. That means expressways and accessibility to the stadium. Next, the mayor and city council of Clyde have already promised us free municipal services and exemption from property taxes. I’ve already optioned a thousand acres on both sides of the freeway for a thousand dollars an acre. In thirty years that land will be selling by the square foot and we will exercise the option to buy the bonds back from the ticket holders at face value. The Franchise owns the land, the stadium and all improvements and won’t have a tax problem with property for thirty years.” Dick looked at Cyrus Chandler. “You won’t be here.”
Cyrus blinked and jerked back.
“Do the math. This is for your grandson, that’s why I’m moving assets into the trust as fast as possible—for him.” Dick tossed the paper with the hastily figured stadium-financing plan. “The least you can do for the kid is protect him with the trust.” Conly smiled. “Not that I enjoy planning your estate, but the assumption of your death is so attractive.”
Cyrus didn’t smile. “What makes you so certain this’ll fly?”
“Two things,” Conly replied. “We get the Super Bowl in three years. Robbie Burden is willing to go along as long as the commissioner’s office gets its share of tickets. And Red Kilroy and Taylor Rusk just might take the Pistols to the Super Bowl by then. Since the blackout rule includes all local games, that means my Pay-Per-View television plan will include the Super Bowl Game.”
“What’s the Super Bowl worth?”
“How does a hundred-million-dollar gate strike you?”
MIND GAMES
BEFORE RED MET with Cyrus Chandler and Dick Conly to discuss the draft, he had Taylor stop by his office. He wanted to lever his head a little.
“Taylor, you know this is pro ball, and ...”
“It certainly is, Red.”
“What?”
“Pro ball. You said this was pro ball. I was just agreeing with you.” Taylor walked away from the coach’s metal desk to the window. “Geez, Red, what a shitty view.”
“What?” Red bit through his cigar in frustrated confusion. “Siddown, Taylor. I’ve gotta meet with Conly about the draft, and ...”
“I guess you got a draft.” Taylor ran a hand around the window. “They not only gave you a bad view, you’re on the north side of the building. I’ll bet you freeze in here on cold days.”
“What are you talking about now?” Red swiveled his leather swivel chair around and spit part of the cigar into the waste can.
“Red, I didn
’t invite myself over here. I figure you called me up here to threaten me with all the quarterbacks available in the draft.”
“Taylor. Taylor. How can you say that?”
“Bull’s-eye.”
“I have to think ahead.”
“And I don’t?” Taylor turned quickly from the window and advanced on Red. The size of the movement was intimidating. Red pulled back into his chair.
“I don’t have to think ahead? Is that it, Coach?” Taylor’s wide, long hands splayed out on the metal desk as Taylor leaned across it. “Now”—his voice was soft, but the man towering over Red Kilroy was visibly angry—“I don’t like mind games. I thought we got all that shit straight at the University. So far you have told me that this is pro ball and the draft is coming. What advantage do you think that gives you over me?”
“Look, Taylor, I’m just the coach. Conly and Chandler have their own ideas about what we need in the draft.” Red tried to look sincere. “They want more quarterbacks. Cyrus doesn’t like you much.”
“And?”
“Well, they want to use our number one to get Jacobi from Notre Dame.”
“And?”
“Jacobi?” Red went on. “The quarterback from Notre Dame? Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Taylor moved back to the window. He looked north to where the new expressway fed out into cotton fields and gin towns.
“Notre Dame, Taylor, Notre Dame.” Red slapped himself on the top of the head as if pounding a stake into his brain. “Catholics, Taylor. Do you know how many Catholics there are in the world?”
Taylor shook his head. “How many?”
“How the fuck should I know? But they watch a fucking lot of TV football. Dick and Cyrus think they’ll watch Texas if we get Jacobi. And frankly, Taylor, it’s a sound theory.”
“But you’re willing to stick with me.”
Red nodded grimly.