by Peter Gent
He was a very happy man.
With his quarterback in seclusion, Red Kilroy refused to cooperate with anyone who wanted to find Taylor. Various threats of League sanctions, Franchise reprisals and bad press relations rolled off like rain on a tin roof. Suzy and A.D. threatened to fire him. Robbie Burden threatened to fine him and the press threatened to crucify him. But Red refused to make his quarterback appear for scheduled press sessions. He also told his other players to hide out as much as possible, promising to pay any fines. Daily threats were issued, trying to force the Pistol players to be more cooperative in the week-long pregame carnival of hype.
“Distractions can lead to destruction,” Red warned. Many of the players, while staying registered in the hotel, returned secretly to their homes and families.
Red took all the heat for his players, knowing it was vital to steer them safely through the week-long minefield.
Taylor waited for his family in the penthouse.
Earlier he’d ordered an avocado-and-bean-sprout sandwich but had only eaten half. Now, clearing the old glass, plates and soft-drink bottles, Taylor put them on the room service tray and set the tray in the hall.
The day the players arrived at the hotel, Bob Travers had convinced Red to put a man in the kitchen to check the employees and oversee the preparation of players’ food.
“A little ptomaine goes a long way, Red,” the bodyguard had warned.
Bob brought in a friend from the Bexar County Health Department as a dishwasher to watch the food service and pick up information.
A computer check uncovered a newly hired cook with a felony arson conviction who two weeks earlier had been a pizza chef at a Cobianco restaurant. Bob arranged to have the cook kidnapped and held in the Piedras Negras jail until after the game.
Dick Conly paid to put two more men and a woman in the hotel kitchen to secure the food supply Conly flew in fresh from New Mexico daily.
The Cobianco brothers never knew what happened to their pizza chef.
When the private penthouse elevator started, Taylor walked through the huge suite of rooms to the large bedroom on the west side. He pulled back the covers on the king-size bed, fluffed up a pillow, drew closed the drapes and lit a Snoopy nightlight.
Taylor returned as the elevator doors slid open. Toby carried Randall. Taylor pointed him toward the bedroom and Toby crept off with the sleeping child.
Wendy followed them off the elevator, giving Taylor a hug and a kiss, which he bent to receive, an awkward motion that was difficult because of their height difference and his increasingly weakened back.
Bob got off last, his eyes reading Taylor’s face, then quickly glancing around the room. He followed Toby to the boy’s room, then began his ritual search of the huge penthouse. Bob Travers was paid a large salary to be carefully observant.
Wendy brushed past Taylor and walked into the sitting room, carrying the evening paper. She stood at the window, staring to the south, looking for the dark shape of the Pistol Dome.
“It’s still out there. I saw it this afternoon.” Taylor understood her intense gaze. “It’s moving closer but has yet to make its intentions known. It may have to be destroyed before it reproduces.”
“Where are we?” Wendy kept her eyes searching south. “The Twilight Zone?”
“The Ozone.” Taylor studied a page of the game plan shaded in blues and reds with Randall scrawled on the bottom in purple.
“The paper has the Pistols at fifteen while the Greek says fifteen and a half.” She waved the paper at him. “How do you score half a point?”
“Concentration and execution. Kimball Adams may have been the last quarterback good enough to do it.”
Wendy turned and looked at him, her pale-blue eyes wide; finally she blinked, gazing back outside. “How much are you paying for the Ozone?”
“Twenty-five hundred a day. It’s got six bedrooms and baths, a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view and its own elevator. What more could an American hero want?”
“You’ll lose money.” She looked around the room. “It costs more to stay here than you’ll make for playing in the Super Bowl. Win or lose.”
“Yeah.” Taylor nodded. A frown tightened his face, his mouth a line curved down at the ends. The pull flattened his nose slightly. “I was never good with money. That’s why Doc handles it.”
“Do you know how much you have?”
Taylor shook his head. “I’m scared of the damn stuff.”
Wendy slapped her leg with the rolled up newspaper. “Well, there is a certain Olympian quality about the view. Taylor Rusk, the greatest of the classical Hellenistic quarterbacks. Did you discuss the line with the gods?”
“We were kicking the spread around when Bob called.” Taylor was straight-faced. “Zeus wants to bet the spread, but Athena will bring him around. She hangs out with the oddsmaker at Delphi. They’ll bet on us, but whether they’ll help ...” Taylor shrugged. “Gods can be such vindictive assholes. Look what they did to Prometheus just for giving a guy a light.”
Wendy looked out at the darkening blue sky and the sparkling city. “All pretty epic, Taylor.”
“It beats the Armadillo Ranch.”
“Yes, it does,” Wendy agreed. “You do things in a truly heroic style.”
“This is serious ritual.”
“Well, keep yourself healthy and profound,” Wendy said. “Spend time contemplating the Pistol Dome and stretching your Achilles tendon.”
“Despite the nay-sayers among the gods and the doubts and teasing of my favorite goddess”—he glanced at Wendy—“I shall go forth on Sunday and fulfill the immortality fetish that all America has hungered for since God went on the nod. History will compare it to the parting of the Red Sea—”
“Or the parting of your hair,” Wendy cut him off, tossing the newspaper at him. “Read.”
The headline read:
BILLY JOE HARDESTY EVANGELICAL LIFE, INC.,
SUED BY CYRUS CHANDLER WIDOW
Taylor read the copy aloud:
The widow of the founder of The Texas Pistols Football Club has filed suit against BJHEL, Inc., claiming that Reverend Hardesty used lies and fraud to persuade her late husband, Cyrus Chandler, to sign over extensive property to BJHEL, Inc.
Charlie Stillman, attorney for Suzanne Ballard Chandler, filed the suit in the Ninety-seventh District Court. Mr. Chandler, Stillman said, “was a devoutly religious man, and Billy Joe Hardesty took advantage of his trusting Christian nature to swindle him. We will prove that in court.”
“If Stillman can convince a jury my father was a trusting Christian man, anything is possible.”
Taylor returned to reading.
Rev. Hardesty claimed that the Devil was controlling Mrs. Chandler and encouraged all his followers to pray for her soul. Hardesty quoted Scripture as his support and guide:
“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”
“Billy Joe is explaining sky diving?”
“If I know my Scripture,” Wendy said, “that is First Thessalonians, fourth chapter, verses sixteen and seventeen, and has to do with the Rapture.”
“It sounds like an experimental ballet company.”
“It’s amazing that people believe Billy Joe.”
“In the Ninety-seventh District Court the alternative will be to believe Suzy.”
“Which reminds me, I have been giving a little thought to the issue of business. If we do business, we better do business. I’d like for us to meet with my lawyer.”
“So he can cut himself a slice off me?” Taylor interrupted. “No, thanks.”
“But ...”
“End of discussion,” Taylor said. “I don’t need a lawyer to explain Sunday. I will do what is right and proper at the time. I like being a hero.”
> Taylor walked up and gripped her shoulders in his oversize scarred hands. She leaned back against him, resting her head on his chest. He could feel her warmth; the crushed-flower smell of her filled his head. She relaxed and gently fitted her soft contours against his body. He gathered her to him, his hands sliding across her back, her ribs. He bent, kissing the hollow at her neck and shoulder. Her supple, pliant body stiffened.
“What do we do with the Franchise?” she asked. “Can we take it and run?”
“I don’t know,” Taylor said. “It’s not the price we pay,” he mocked, “but the fee the lawyer earns.”
Wendy Chandler disengaged and drifted away with grace and determination. She shivered, rubbing her arms with her slender hands. It was cool out; a front had pushed out of the panhandle, clearing the air. The dying sun cast a pink glow in the high blue sky.
Taylor grabbed the playbook. “These are pretty good field notes on the culture and the kind of man who survives and thrives in this system. We could research the problem all night.” He pointed at the pages of X’s and O’s, arrows and lines. “I offer myself as your case study in athletic archaeology and anthropology.” Taylor pulled off his sweat shirt.
“Can I use my rock hammer?”
“We don’t want to contaminate the dig. It will have to be done totally naked and very carefully.” He tossed the shirt onto the carpet.
“This has little similarity to hunting for arrowheads.” Wendy frowned, then reached for the snaps at the back of her blouse. “But then, rock hunts never did blow my skirt up.”
The next morning, in the penthouse living room, Randall was sitting on the floor, watching the television reruns of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, when the bedroom phone rang.
Taylor answered on the third ring. Wendy stirred but kept her eyes closed, trying to cling to a few more moments of sleep.
The operator told Taylor the time, date and outside temperature and wished him a good day. He had ordered the wake-up call to keep him from lying in bed too long.
Pulling on jeans and a Texas Pistols T-shirt, Taylor padded barefoot on the thick pile carpet into the living room.
Toby was watching Randall watch the early adventures of Scooby, Shaggy, Freddy, Velma and Daphne. Bob was reading a computer magazine called Systems and Software. He looked up from the article on recent advances in security systems that accompanied the piece on Major “Pat” Garrett. The Major elaborated on the security precautions and elaborate plans that Security Services, Inc., had designed for the Pistol Dome. “Crowd control will be the major problem of the eighties,” he said.
“These reruns are better than the new shows,” Toby said to Taylor.
“What?” Taylor was still groggy.
“Scooby-Doo,” Toby continued. “These early shows had good stories and plot twists with character development. They were great for kids. Not like the new ones, with nothing but pie fights and car chases. You know?”
Taylor nodded dumbly.
“And now,” Toby continued, “all the superfiends look like Koreans with congenital defects and pear-shaped heads.”
“Uh-huh.” Taylor stared at Toby a moment, then returned to the bedroom. Bob shook his head and continued to read.
Randall never took his eyes from the screen. He rode along with Scooby and friends in the Mystery Machine.
Wendy sat up sleepy-eyed in bed as Taylor drew the curtains and heavy drapes, letting in hazy morning light. Wendy picked up the five-dollar Super Bowl program and began leafing through it. Taylor gazed into the white light, trying to make out the distant form of the Pistol Dome.
“When Albert Speer designed the Nuremberg stadium, you know what he wanted the Nazi fan to feel?” Taylor asked, still searching the fog for the familiar form.
“Nothing.” Wendy glanced at the beer ad on the inside cover of the program. “And I don’t care.”
“That’s right ... you’re right.” Taylor was surprised.
“I know.” She thumbed past the disgustingly maudlin story “The Old Pro and the Kid.” “I know lots of things.”
Taylor finally saw the outline of the dome. “Speer said he wanted the spectator to feel nothing.”
“I know.” Wendy looked up. “I just told you.”
“I wonder if he succeeded?”
“He did on you. Talk about going numb.” Wendy tossed the Super Bowl program on the floor.
“Whiskey, cars, drugs and jocks,” Wendy said, stretching and yawning. “What else could a person want? Or feel?”
Randall wandered into the room, carrying his Star Wars Light Saber. Sitting at his mother’s side, he called room service, ordering everyone pancakes and Pepsi-Cola for breakfast. There was a small circle of scar tissue at the hollow of his throat, a constant reminder of life’s precariousness. The boy hacked his way back through a forest of Imperial Storm Troopers to the living room and the end of Scooby-Doo.
“Let’s start looking for a house and a preacher,” Taylor said.
Wendy stretched, relaxing catlike, slow, enjoying the release.
“I want to be married by the bell captain.”
Breakfast arrived with a scream and a crash. Randall, with his Light Saber, ambushed the room service waiter.
“EEEyaaaa!” The boy leaped from the hall closet and slashed the thin Latin man across the legs and buttocks with the whistling plastic sword. The terrified waiter, his escape blocked by the table he was wheeling, tried vainly to dodge the stinging hollow thonks.
“Where’s the Scooby Snacks, Hairball?” Randall continued to whip the man in short red jacket and black pants.
“Randall! Randall!” Wendy yelled from the bedroom. “Stop dismembering the waiter. And we don’t call people ‘Hairball’!”
The boy’s face fell. He checked his backswing with deep disappointment; it was to have been a head shot.
The waiter pushed the table into the room and, without waiting for Taylor to sign the check, dashed back out the door before Randall resumed his attack.
Wendy entered the large living room, tying her blue floor-length robe. She had already brushed her hair and teeth and rinsed her face with cold water. She sat quickly and began soaking her pancakes in honey from a jar shaped like an anthropomorphic bear.
Randall pointed at Toby with his Light Saber. “Me and Shaggy are going on a mission.”
“That right, Shaggy?” Bob Travers’s eyes were still on his computer magazine.
“We’re gonna go look for clues.” Toby’s mirthless voice and set jaw convinced Taylor that he took playing Shaggy seriously.
Wendy smoothed the boy’s thick hair with her fingers. Randall twisted away, irritated.
“Stop it, Momma.” He purposely messed his hair again.
Randall grabbed two pancakes and a canned Pepsi. Rolling the pancakes up, he put one in his shirt pocket and handed the other to Toby. “Here’s the supplies, Shaggy. You all be Freddy and Velma and Daphne.”
“I’ll be Daphne.” Taylor also rolled his pancake, dipping one end in a pool of maple syrup and eating it like a tortilla. Wendy ate her pancakes properly with an efficient but delicate dispatch.
“Momma, you be Velma and Bob can be Freddy.”
Bob grunted and kept reading. Wendy nodded.
“You guys pretend that me and Shaggy are out looking for clues to help find the Abdominal Snowman.”
“The Abdominal Snowman?” Taylor dipped his pancake in the honey on Wendy’s plate.
“He’s a fierce aminal,” the boy replied.
“An-i-mal,” Wendy corrected automatically.
“Come on, Shag, let’s go.” Randall ignored his mother and crept down the foyer to the door, then the hallway beyond. Toby followed obediently, eating his plain pancake like an empty burrito. The door slammed.
Taylor ate slowly while his mind automatically worked through another version of the coming game. He, too, was looking for clues. Keys. What ifs. He was gathering himself for the task. Not yet Super Sunday and already sixteen points be
hind, the quarterback withdrew into his mind and imagination to play the game over and over. Taylor played Sunday’s game from each position, all possible conditions, in every down and yardage situation against all of Denver’s defenses. On Super Sunday nothing could happen during the game that Taylor hadn’t already confronted in his imagination.
He imagined, therefore he could. He could do what it took to win by more than sixteen points.
He began, as always, by suspending disbelief.
“What is the town’s most popular misfit thinking about?” Finished with breakfast, Wendy licked honey from her fingers. “You’re frowning.”
“Sorry, I was thinking about the game.” Taylor smiled automatically, his eyes not quite reaching focus. “Fine-tuning my manic depression.”
“Will you speed up or slow down by Sunday?”
“I never know.” Taylor’s eyes darkened. “That’s what makes the horserace.” He picked up the game plan sheets. Randall had added X’s and O’s where he chose. This time he had used purple crayon. “I think we’ll have a big element of surprise early in the game. They won’t expect us to start the game playing like we’re sixteen points behind. We’ll start fast and speed up.” Taylor began to feel the rush, the building of emotion. “Denver’ll be expecting our regular offense with a few new wrinkles, but we are going to play the whole game like a two-minute drill. We’ll gamble big all day. Gamble on third and fourth down. We’ll line up without a huddle. Run when they expect pass, pass when they expect run. Onside kicks, fake punts and field goals. Sixteen points is a hell of a lot to make up. The defense has to force turnovers. We have to knock them down early, then pound them, blow them out. We have to find the big gun and shoot it over and over and over.”
INSIDERS
THE COMMISSIONER’S ANNUAL Super Bowl Party was held in the Pistol Dome on the Insiders’ Level. Circling the stadium, the Insiders’ luxury skyboxes opened off a wide hallway covered in white wallpaper and purple carpet leading to the south end zone and the Insiders’ Restaurant, where the wealthy, influential, beautiful or just plain lucky drank and dined with a fine view of the field.