by Peter Gent
Cobianco went over backward in the swivel chair and lay half conscious on the floor, choking and gagging on his own body parts and fluids.
“My teeth! You knocked out my teeth!” Johnny wailed.
“Wait a second, I’m not finished yet.” Taylor kicked at the overturned chair, trying to scramble past it to reach the crumpled, crying, bleeding man tangled in the drapes in the corner of the room. The tortured body of Tommy McNamara hanging from the bunkhouse rafters flickered through Taylor’s brain. Bobby Hendrix splattered all over Tulum. The combat automatic in one hand, Taylor tossed the heavy furniture aside easily with the other. The swivel chair banged on the handcrafted desk, knocking out expensive divots of teakwood. He was over the edge, out of control, and didn’t care. He lost it and loved it, needed it. The crash of the chair brought anger, hatred and revenge, surging adrenaline hungering for more ferocity. The fury turned everything red. Shoving the pistol in his back pocket, then picking up the United Fund golf trophy by the marble base, Taylor pounded the whimpering Johnny Cobianco with the four-foot metal loving cup. The cup wasn’t particularly thick or heavy metal, but it had real nice sharp edges and good balance.
“You got ribs to break, lungs to puncture, a spleen and kidneys to rupture.” Tightly gripping the base of the battered trophy, Taylor hit the injured, terrified man with full baseball swings, knocking out huge chunks of flesh, bruising muscle and bone. Cobianco screamed and curled fetuslike, covering his head and neck with his hands. He took a powerful beating.
Taylor looked around on A.D.’s desk for another weapon, a blunt instrument to pound the hoodlum. The solid brass team insignia paperweight was too heavy, the full-size replica Colt was too lethal.
The creeping logic of the search for the appropriate weapon began to divert enthusiasm for inflicting damage on the seriously damaged man. So Taylor finally just gave him another halfhearted kidney fungo with the trophy. Make the little shit piss blood for a couple of days.
The door opened and A.D. walked into his office. Taylor threw the trophy against the wall.
“What the hell ... ?” A.D. looked at Taylor, then at Johnny Cobianco, then at the gore splattered on his desk and papers. “Jesus! Taylor! Did you do this?”
“As much of it as I could.” Taylor began gasping for air and sat down on the battle-scarred teak desk. “I tire easily lately.”
Taylor’s anger was gone as fast as it came, leaving him slightly confused.
“Jesus! Taylor!” A.D. was dumbstruck. “That’s Don Cobianco’s little brother.”
“I know, A.D. Goddam, you think I did this by mistake?” On the edge of the desk Taylor sat heavily and nodded wearily. “A.D., you are so stupid ... I can’t ...” He lost the words. He was unchastened, just embarrassed at losing control, losing to chaos.
Taylor found his voice. “I just came by to tell you to send my paychecks to camp and I find this Al Pacino look-alike going through your desk, playing Baby Godfather, and then I’m looking down the barrel of this.” Taylor pulled the .45 automatic from his back pocket. “The little jerk-off forgot to cock it or you’d be scraping me off your padded and flocked wallpaper.”
“Jeeesus! Taylor!” It seemed to be the limit of A.D. Koster’s vocabulary.
The quarterback looked around the purple and white office. “Who picked out this wallpaper anyway, A.D.?”
“Jeeesus! Taylor!” A.D. was riveted to the floor.
Gasping, desperate, severely injured, Johnny Cobianco curled on the floor and bled into A.D.’s expensive white carpet.
A.D. took a wastebasket over for Johnny to bleed in. The beaten man knocked it away. The general manager of the Texas Pistols Football Club, Inc., walked back to his desk. Taylor’s breathing began to slow. Control returning, he studied the visible damage on Johnny C.
“Will you send my checks to camp, A.D.?”
A.D. Koster nodded his head, still staring at Johnny. “Jesus! Taylor!”
“Wait till my brothers ...” Johnny wheezed.
“Eat it, punk.” With good snap Taylor threw A.D.’s autographed football at the bloody man’s head, bouncing the point off his occipital bone and driving his face to the floor. Johnny curled up, whining and bleeding.
“Jesus! Taylor!” A.D. was horrified. Johnny’s blood was an ever-growing pool.
Taylor showed A.D. the boots he had used on Johnny’s ribs. “I got them at Rios in Raymondville. Cognac brown, French leather, hand-fitted. Prince Charles gets boots there. What do you think? Huh? A.D.? You like ’em?”
“Jesus, Taylor. They’ll kill—”
“Sorry about your desk and papers. The blood and teeth are his.” Taylor jammed the automatic back into his hip pocket. “Now, don’t forget the checks; send them to me in camp. Don’t send them to my apartment. All those goddam Investico agents you got running in and out of there will stomp all over them.” Taylor Rusk studied the general manager.
“Jeeesus! Taylor!” A.D. repeated.
Taylor opened the door, then turned back.
“You know, A.D., you and your latest carhop have gotten us all in way over our heads. This is a lot worse than Doris and the Charros. We are in serious deep shit here. This is out of my realm.... You’re breaking new and terrifying ground.” Taylor looked over at the whining, bleeding youngest Cobianco. “Why, A.D.? Why?”
“Just lucky, I guess.” A.D. watched his expensive white carpet become stained red.
Taylor started to close the door but again turned back, his face torn by confusion. “A.D., they kill people. Bobby Hendrix? Tommy McNamara? And God knows how many poor wetbacks ended up as part of the cement work in the Pistol Dome.” Taylor pointed at the man on the floor. “He was already trying your chair on for size. They don’t need you anymore, A.D., and they don’t have a waiver list. They may need Suzy to front the Franchise for them, since Cyrus is a drooling fool, but anybody can be a general manager in professional football. You proved that. You’re only really necessary to send my checks to camp.” Taylor closed the door, leaving A.D. Koster alone with the whimpering Johnny Cobianco.
“Jesus! Taylor!” A.D. said.
Johnny Cobianco continued to bleed into the white carpet. He didn’t move.
BABY JESUS MEETS THE COLT COMMANDER
TAYLOR CARRIED HIS bag and portable TV down the long dormitory hall to his room. He set the television on the small built-in desk and tossed his bag on his bed. He noticed someone had left luggage on the other bed, along with a white leather Bible. Taylor opened the book and found it personally inscribed by Billy Joe Hardesty to Greg Moore.
Greg Moore was the top-notch running back from Los Angeles who Red had finagled as part of the “tampering” compensation resulting from the five-million-dollar offer to Taylor.
Taylor called Red Kilroy in the other wing of the dormitory.
“Whaddaya want?” It was the way Red always answered the phone in camp. Red thought it put the caller on the defensive.
“I want Greg Moore out of my room,” Taylor said. “I hate born-agains worse than coke heads.”
“Taylor! Welcome to camp.”
“Save the confetti and champagne and get this running back out of my room. I room alone in camp, Red—always.”
“Well, Taylor,” Red stalled, “I ... ah ... I sorta thought that if you two roomed together, he could pick up the system a little faster.”
“That’s your problem, Red, not mine. I need my privacy to deal with the system.”
“Come on, Taylor, think about the team. This could be our Super Bowl year.”
“That’s fine, Red. But I can’t share my time with a surfer for Christ.”
“Taylor!” Red acted like his quarterback had suggested killing babies with baseball bats. “Taylor! Don’t tell me you don’t care; we’re talking the ultimate football game.”
“You said the same about the Cotton Bowl and I’m still waiting on the rapture. Now, I want Moore out of here.”
“Taylor. Taylor.”
Taylor
hung up on Red Kilroy.
Greg Moore walked into the room, grinning and glowing as only “one on the true way” can.
“Listen, Greg, I’m Taylor Rusk. Nice to meet you ... glad to have you aboard ... but there’s been a mistake ... I always room alone at camp.”
“This was my assigned room,” Moore answered. Muscular, with a California tan, sun-bleached hair and perfect smile, he was the prototypical LA player. He was beautiful.
“It’s one of Red’s mind games,” Taylor explained. “He could be doing it to you or me or both. But I need my privacy ... quarterbacking for Red is peculiar. So if you could ... ?”
Moore was sitting erect on the bed, doing curls with his barbells. He listened politely to Taylor while he did his curls.
“No. They assigned me the room. I like it.” He had a pleasant smile.
“Please?”
Moore shook his head.
“I’m the quarterback.”
Moore frowned and did curls.
“Look, Moore, you got to go. I room alone. I expect personal, career and life crises. You’ll be in the way and could get hurt. Actually I would like to hurt you. Now, get the hell out of here.”
“I was assigned to this room and I’m staying,” Moore replied with calm confidence. “You can threaten me all you want, but I’m hardly afraid.”
“You don’t care what I want?” Taylor said, shocked. “Even though I have to run this team?”
“If you want to put it that way”—Greg Moore plopped down on his bed and began flipping through his white leather-bound Bible—“you’re nobody special to me.”
“What if I call Ox Wood to break your fingers?” Taylor Rusk watched him for a moment. Moore was about six feet four inches and 235 pounds. Taylor was six feet five inches, 225 pounds and had doubts, even though, while Moore was reading his Bible, Taylor would hit him with all of the furniture that wasn’t nailed down. But Moore was young and powerful, and Taylor had been in one fight that day, with Johnny Cobianco. He didn’t want to deal with all the blood, adrenaline and heavy breathing, especially if it was all his.
Taylor picked up the phone and dialed Red Kilroy.
“Whaddaya want?” Red said.
“I told you, Red. I want Moore out of my room now. I’ll put him on the phone; you tell him to pack and move the manger on down the hall.”
“Taylor, Taylor. Give it a chance. Come on.”
“Does that mean no?”
“It just means give it a little time.”
“I’ll give it five more seconds. Do you tell him over the phone or do I throw his surfer ass through the window?”
“Maybe you ought to think about it. Moore is younger than you, Taylor.”
“He isn’t going to get much older if you don’t get him out, Red.”
“You sure you can take him, Taylor? He lifts weights year-round.” Red was beginning to enjoy needling his quarterback. The competitive edge will sharpen under this kind of strain, Red thought. “I mean, can you take him, Taylor? Ask him what he bench presses.”
Red was playing mind games. The certain realization helped Taylor decide on his action.
“You mean with God on his side, he also jogs and lifts weights?” Taylor looked at the fresh-faced kid thumbing through the white-covered Bible, a gift to him after an appearance representing Athletes for Jesus on the All-American Evangelical Hour.
“Partly,” Red continued to push Taylor. “Greg Moore’s in his early twenties, with a little seasoning, just hitting stride and driven by conviction. He’s what I want at running back. He’s perfect.”
“Red, you can’t win the Super Bowl by playing mind games and using this poor fool. We can use him.” Taylor’s voice quieted, his tone calculating. “But if you think causing me trouble is going to be one of his jobs, you’re mistaken. We’ll see how cabin fever affects him.”
“What?” Red asked. “What about—?”
Taylor hung up the phone, cutting off the coach.
“You know, Taylor”—Moore kept his nose pointed into the Bible—“being a Christian athlete gives me certain advantages over non-Christian athletes. I put my life in God’s hands and dedicate my life to Christ. Knowing God has a plan, I don’t worry. I’m solid in my faith. You worry too much and will become a victim of anxiety.”
“God’s plan?”
“That’s right.” Moore turned a page. “When you get all worked up over room assignments, it proves that relying on your humanism will fail.”
“ ‘Creeping humanism’?” Taylor asked.
“You can call it that,” Moore said. “It’s replacing faith in the Almighty with faith in yourself, a human.”
Staring at the ceiling, Taylor thought about R.D. Locke still playing defensive back at Denver. It was probably going to be Locke’s last season too.
“Say, Greg.” Taylor leaned over and dug inside his bag, pulling out Johnny Cobianco’s .45 automatic. “What if I am the Almighty?” He flicked off the safety and thumbed the hammer spur. “In your case?”
The explosion was deafening, bouncing around the cinder block walls of the small dormitory room. The recoil jolted Taylor’s arm to his shoulder. The slug knocked out a chunk of cinder block about three inches square, two feet above Greg Moore’s head. The rock fragments cut up the smooth young cheeks and neck; fortunately the white leather Bible protected his eyes. The running back dived onto the floor, dropping the Bible and scrambling for the bathroom door. All asshole and elbows.
Taylor squeezed off a second shot that blew a dresser drawer to splinters as the scuttling Moore crawfished through the bathroom to the other room. He jumped to his feet, running for the coaches’ wing. Explosions echoed down the hall as Taylor emptied the clip into Greg Moore’s old bed and pillow.
Taylor tossed the pistol back into his bag and listened to the thunder of feet in the hallway. He was sorry the gun was out of ammunition; he liked the sound and smell.
Taylor Rusk roomed alone again that year. He bought more ammunition and, the last day of camp, shot up A.D.’s rented Cadillac. He considered it a good start for the Super Bowl season. Greg Moore did well that camp; he was the League’s number-two rusher that season and was All-Pro. Greg understood perfectly about rendering unto Caesar or else. He and Taylor spoke only in the huddle and were not friends, but he ran like the wind, hit like a truck, was an excellent receiver and pass blocker, never made mistakes and could throw the halfback option with incredible accuracy. He also ended up as the punter with a forty-four-yard average.
“Different approaches motivate different players, Red,” Taylor explained. “I spend a lot of time with football players, trying to influence their behavior....”
“I can’t fucking believe you!” Red ground his teeth. “You could have killed him!”
“Greg’s the kind of player who needs a couple of shots across his bow to get going.”
“I can’t believe you shot up the dormitory.”
“Does this mean I get traded to Denver?”
“I can’t believe it!” Red stormed off. “My quarterback leads his team at gunpoint.”
“We’re in desperate straits, Coach.” Taylor laughed and continued to fieldstrip the .45 Colt Commander.
SIMON/BUFFY
SIMON D’HANIS SPENT that exhibition season with Los Angeles. He was usually in such pain that he seldom practiced but saw lots of action. It was Thursday or Friday before the swelling reduced from the previous Saturday, often requiring aspiration of the joint and injections of cortisone. He took Butazolidin in addition to his normal daily intake of painkillers, anabolic steroids for muscle bulk and various vitamins and mineral supplements. For pain he was taking Percodan and used Seconal to sleep, depriving him of dreams.
Simon needed dreams.
On game day Simon added a hundred milligrams of Dexedrine in ten- to twenty-milligram doses starting four hours before kickoff and continuing on into the fourth quarter of the game. After an exceptionally hot early season game, he had to be pa
cked in ice and rushed to the hospital. But Simon D’Hanis did not miss a game. And his leg did not improve; rather it was beginning to degenerate from abuse.
Buffy and the children stayed in Texas. The marriage was self-destructing under the traumas of Simon’s knee injury and the Machiavellian machinations of surgery, rehabilitation and the trade to LA. Despite his brutal treatment of her, Buffy stayed with him. She would not listen to an unkind word about Simon.
“He was there when I needed him,” Buffy told Wendy at lunch. “I’m going to be there when he needs me.”
“He doesn’t seem to need or want you around,” Wendy argued. “I’ve seen the marks he’s put on you, Buffy. He’s dangerous. Taylor says he’s capable of killing somebody. You might be doing the best thing for both of you and the kids if you all went and stayed in Kingsville while Simon took this whipping by himself.”
“That’s sure a nice way for a friend to talk,” Buffy replied angrily, putting her fork down and folding her hands in her lap. “And you can tell Taylor Rusk for me that if he were a real friend, he wouldn’t say things like that about Simon.”
“Taylor only told me because he worries about you and the children.”
“Oh, that’s real big of him.” Buffy crumpled her napkin and tossed it on the table. “I noticed how he jumped right to the front and claimed paternity on Randall when you got pregnant.”
“I never told him I was pregnant.” Wendy reached over and took Buffy’s arm. “Come on, dear. I’m sorry. Eat your lunch and let’s gossip and forget about football and football players.”
Buffy cocked her head and gave Wendy a look of consternation. “That’s a laugh, coming from you. You get knocked up by one football player, own about fifty others, and your father trades my husband fifteen hundred miles away with a shattered knee and you want to hold hands and gossip.” Buffy jerked her hand away. “No, thanks.”
Buffy left the table and restaurant quickly, sticking Wendy with the bill and two Caesar salads. Buffy picked up Simon Taylor D’Hanis at the baby-sitter’s house and drove home. The two girls were still in school and wouldn’t be home until around three-forty.