The Franchise

by Peter Gent

  “Expenses—you heard me. The bond income may not cover operating expenses, and if Taylor Rusk keeps forcing the issue ...” He stopped and looked at Stillman.

  “Bingo.”

  “But why? If he gives me the three million, that ought to ...”

  “Ought to ain’t good enough,” Stillman said. “Besides, it removes potential opposition down the road.”

  “What? How?”

  “Simple. You kill Taylor Rusk, Wendy Chandler and the boy.”

  “Why? In God’s name, why?”

  “The same reason you asked for Hendrix and McNamara.”

  “I didn’t ask you guys to kill them. I just wanted to know if there was any sort of file on me. I began to get suspicious of Hendrix. I thought maybe he and McNamara were up to something they weren’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw the documents.”

  “You saw some documents. There could be more. What if there is a file on you?” Stillman’s voice was cold, his eyes slits. “You do what you’re told. Pick the shooters up, drive them out to Doc Webster’s ranch and help them with the killing. Then you get your three million dollars.” Stillman clapped him on the shoulder. “Now, write out that executive order making me counsel and chief financial officer. I’ve got to go look over the books. You seem like the kind of fellow that can’t be trusted with other people’s money.”

  Stillman read and folded the letter when it was finished. He started to leave.

  “You know”—he stopped and turned back—“I asked Wendy Chandler for a little work once, right after her daddy died. She said, ‘You’ll get work from me when Br’er Rabbit goes to a dollar a sop.’ ”

  Stillman laughed and shoved the letter into his coat.

  THE SHOOTERS FROM SWAMP CITY

  THE DRIVER SAT OUSTIDE the baggage claim, waiting for the two shooters from New Orleans. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, but it was his problem. There was no one else.

  “Every problem presents opportunity,” Stillman had said. “The tragic deaths at the Pistol Dome could be a golden opportunity to increase power. It seems to me that Taylor Rusk, the woman and the child are the only problems left. Their removal will leave the trust fund without purpose or direction.”

  The woman and the child. He had not expected that.

  “What if there is a file?” Stillman had said. “If you clip him and she’s seen it, she’s not likely to back off and let us screw the trust set up for her kid or the Franchise her daddy built. Don’t leave witnesses. Little kids are smart. Can’t trust ’em. Got six of my own. You do as you’re told or we don’t have a deal. The Man doesn’t need you to pick up the pieces. Make it too tough, I cut you loose.” Stillman warned. “The Man in New Orleans doesn’t need this deal, so shut up and do what you are told.”

  The two shooters came out of baggage claim. The driver recognized the giant, Hymie. Patch, the other one, was small and ferret-faced.

  He drove them toward Dead Man Creek, Taylor, Wendy and Randall.

  “This guy is a friend of mine,” the driver said impulsively.

  “Aren’t they all.” Patch, the small guy, was assembling a Browning .22 automatic, Woodsman model.

  The Cadillac climbed into the hills.

  “Lot of fucking rocks in this country,” Patch said.

  The Cadillac turned onto the caliche road and across the cattle guard.

  “How many people?” Patch asked.

  “Three, maybe four. I don’t know for sure.”

  “Terrific.” Hymie spoke for the first time. “What kind of clown are you? You contract a hit and don’t know how many?”

  “Well, I don’t do this stuff too much, you know.”

  “Neither do we, asshole, but we try to get it done right. They said you were a professional and could stand the heat. What the hell is this?”

  A pickup truck came toward them on the one-lane caliche road. Three men sat in the front seat. The Cadillac and the pickup passed slowly. The three men waved. The obligatory gun rack in the pickup window held three shotguns.

  “Who are they?” Hymie grabbed the driver’s seat back with his huge hands. “They act like they know you? That’s three fucking witnesses, you jack-off!”

  “They don’t know me. Everybody waves around here. We’re in the country,” the driver said. “You saw the sign on the truck; those guys were carpenters, probably doing work at the ranch. It’s five; they’d be quitting now. Don’t worry: People trust each other out here.”

  “We’ll cure them of that,” Patch laughed.

  “I don’t like this,” Hymie said. “This should be planned better. New Orleans can’t wait?”

  “If somebody wants to call him,” Patch mocked. “I’ll put up the quarter.” The small man slid a magazine of mini-mag hollow points into the automatic.

  “Somebody killed the Cobiancos,” Hymie said. “Fucking wiped them out. I would like to know who before we go charging in.”

  Patch shoved the long-barreled pistol into a scabbard inside his belt.

  “The big man at the wheel is the key. Ask him. We got a job to do.”

  “Who killed the Cobiancos?” Hymie asked the driver.

  “Not me, for Chrissakes. I don’t know. I thought you guys ...”

  “Shut up and drive, asshole.” Patch, the small man, opened one of the bags and took out and assembled a nine-millimeter submachine gun. “And don’t act like a fag choirboy. The Man says you order hits like most people do pizza.” Two long clips fully loaded were taped together with gaffer’s tape.

  “Stillman said you had Bobby Hendrix tossed out of a plane.” Hymie was assembling a Winchester 1200 police riot shotgun. It looked small in his huge hands.

  “He did?” Patch looked at the driver. “That right, asshole?”

  “No. It was a misunderstanding.”

  “What? Hendrix think he could fly?”

  Patch and Hymie grinned and nudged each other.

  “Well, this one ain’t no misunderstanding,” Patch said, “We’re gonna kill three people and you are here to help. It’s your hit, now tell us about the layout at the ranch house up ahead. We’ll figure out how to do it.” Patch looked out the side window. “The guy played a hell of a Super Bowl Game, I got to admit, even if I lost my ass on the spread. Kind of hate to clip a guy like that.”

  “I bet on him.” Hymie slid the green three-inch Magnum triple-0 Buck cartridges into the sawed-off shotgun. “Made twenty-five grand. There’s something magic about that guy. I’ve seen him up close. He could do it. He got away from me and Tiny one night after I hit him with a baseball bat and Tiny busted his nose. He’s going out on top ... going out a winner ... not like these bums you see hang on to the end and then sell beer to the kids. Disgusting what ex-jocks do for money. I feel kind of proud.”

  He pumped a shell into the chamber.

  THE FILE

  TAYLOR JEFFERSON RUSK sat out by the rain barrel and read through the file several times before setting it down. He stared out toward the back field and the ravine beyond where he and Bob Travers had caught up with Tiny Walton, Lennie the Leech and the big guy in the four-wheel drive.

  Until now Taylor had assumed Tommy McNamara had told them everything and had suffered the terrible desecration and mutilation in vain.

  But Tommy McNamara hadn’t told everything. He hadn’t even told Taylor and Wendy.

  The thugs killed him without learning what he knew. He was killed by uncertainty, the same reason Bobby died. The lack of information. Maybe. Maybe not. Kill them both and remove all doubt.

  Kill ’em all, let God sort ’em out. Information poor vs. information rich.

  It wasn’t what was in the file. It was the fact that the file existed. There appeared to be evidence for misappropriation of funds, questionable loans to the staff, letters to owners that hinted at sweetheart deals and secret protocols designed to mousetrap the players. And, of course, the millions of dollars in loans from the Laborers Union. Local 666. The Cob
iancos’ union. Interest-free loans that kept the books balanced—as long as no one pushed too hard, probed too deep or cared too much about other players. Bobby Hendrix, for instance.

  The Cobiancos had killed Hendrix and McNamara. Not for the owners. Not for the League. But for the Union. For Terry Dudley.

  It was for Dudley that they had died. Dudley’s thirst for power, his hunger for fame and reputation, his all-consuming desire to sit at the head table with big guys. The Ten Top Onions. Terry Dudley was not a player. He hated players.

  In a world that Dudley insisted must be split into us against them, Terry Dudley was not us. Terry Dudley was them. But why?

  That was the question Bobby had asked in his letter to Tommy:

  Why would the League allow Dudley to go undetected? The players have little time or inclination to involve themselves in the Union. It’s the kiss of death. The blacklist. But if I know, the League knows, and Dudley knows they know, which means conspiracy. We’re right back where we were when Charlie Stillman was director. Except the stakes are bigger. We are the software and he is selling us out. They are all in this together: the League, the Union, the networks, big business, big labor. The only person left out, as usual, is the working stiff. They’ll scream and holler and ritually sacrifice players in the name of collective bargaining, but suddenly we’ll look up and they’ll be sitting side by side taking turns sucking off the Congress for antitrust exemption, promising wage freezes and no strikes.

  It’s just a guess, but I’m close.

  Look over the enclosed papers. The LM-2 forms from the Labor Department show the loans from the Cobiancos needed to balance the books. Check the notation I made on his personnel sheet. He spent six months in the Bahamas—Freeport, where Casinos International has the training school for Investico agents.

  Let me know what you find when I get back from Cozumel.

  Good luck on your piece on the League and the Mob. Be careful.

  As Ox always says, they can kill us and they can eat us, but that don’t mean we have to taste good. We can still stick in their craw and make ’em sick as fucking dogs.

  Keep on.

  B.H.

  Taylor read the note from Bobby several times and still came back to the Cobianco brothers’ union local. Why?

  Why did they loan the players’ Union all that money? What did they get or expect to get?

  The builders had stopped work on the outhouse and were getting ready to leave when it finally hit Taylor right between the eyes. The players’ pension fund!

  It wasn’t big now, but if things kept on like they were going and they began talking residuals, percentages and minimum bargaining agreements instead of free agency and collective bargaining agreements, the pension fund would be monstrous. The Union would control hundreds of millions of dollars, not the players ... the Union.

  And soon the players’ pension fund would be lending money to the Cobianco brothers to build gambling palaces for Casinos International—all to be protected by Investico. Paid for by players. Generations of players. Everyone would get rich but the players. Those were the rules. That was the game.

  “If we know, the League knows,” Bobby Hendrix had written. They were letting Dudley do it. He was theirs. It was a Punch and Judy show while they picked the players’ pockets. And judging by the figures on the LM-2, Dudley was so careless, felt so invulnerable, that he could misplace three million dollars in three years and nobody noticed.

  Maybe, Taylor thought, the laborers local 666 didn’t really lend the money at all. Dudley was cooking the books.

  Or maybe, just maybe, Dudley couldn’t keep his hands off the pension fund either.

  “He went through all those millions a year in dues and needed more. Maybe he just lifted it out of the pension fund, expecting to pay it back shortly.” Taylor began talking out loud, listening to how it sounded.

  “That’s why he refuses to pay the claims for Hendrix and Simon. He is broke. The Union is broke. The pension fund is broke, and since the killings on Super Sunday, the Cobianco brothers can’t help bail him out!” Taylor began to pace. He was hyperventilating. “Maybe ... maybe Terry Dudley is in a box and running short on air!

  “Holy shit!” Taylor jumped straight up in the air. “Holy shit!” He grabbed his head, pulling his hair in confusion. “I’m the one sitting on the boxtop, screaming, ‘No more air until you come up with pension money for Hendrix and Simon!’ He ain’t got it and can’t get it.”

  Inside, the phone was ringing.

  “Holy shit ... holy shit ...” Taylor started wandering blindly in the yard, holding his hand across his mouth so his spirit didn’t escape and make a dash for safety. “No. No, no, no. Wrong. Can’t be.” He stopped dead in his tracks and stared down at a scorpion digging in under a rock, hiding from the sunlight, waiting to sting some poor fool.

  “It’s for you.” Wendy was at the back kitchen door. “He says it’s urgent.”

  “Okay, I’ll take it.” Taylor looked up at Wendy. “Did you read this?”

  She shook her head. “You said you quit all that shit.”

  “I quit a season too late.”

  Taylor walked inside and picked up the phone. It was Lamar Jean Lukas.

  “Say, Taylor. I found a briefcase here in your apartment in the kitchen broom closet that I never saw before. The initials on it are A.D.K.”

  “A.D. Koster?” Taylor said.

  “I was hoping you would tell me.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I woke up feeling kind of funny this morning. I mean, I felt great ... sort of real good for a change, but I just felt restless all day and got to pacing around.” Lamar paused and thought.

  “Maybe I’m just coming down from the whole week of pretending to be you, but anyway, when I found this briefcase, I opened it without thinking. I swear, man, whatever you do is fine by me, but I wanted you to know I looked inside.”

  “And?”

  “Well. It is full of money. Cash money. I quit counting after a while, but it’s got to be a million, maybe millions. I never seen this much money.”

  “Millions? Of dollars?”

  “They look real to me.”

  “Have you told anybody else?”

  “Man, I told you I felt weird all day. I ain’t turned on a radio or a television or opened the door.”

  “Okay, okay, okay.” Taylor tried to hold his mind together. “That is mine, but part of the money is yours.”

  “Naw, Taylor, I can’t take....”

  “There ain’t no take to it. It’s a ... it’s a ... it’s a ... a ... fund, yeah, a fund that Doc and I are setting up for Ginny Hendrix and her kids, but Doc and I both felt you ought to have some say and control over the funds, since you were such a big help last week.”

  “Taylor, this is silly. I don’t know about money.”

  The carpenter’s truck pulled off and the caliche dust blew through the open window.

  “I know, but Doc does, and he’ll be right over to pick you up. Now, don’t you leave until he gets there, you hear me? That’s an order. Fair?”

  “Okay, Taylor. Fair.”

  “Good. I’ll get him over. Don’t open up for anybody but Doc.”

  Taylor hung up and began dialing Doc’s number.

  “Wendy! We got to get out of here! Get Randall. Hello? ... Doc? Just listen. Go to my apartment, pick up Lamar Jean ... yeah, that lunatic. Take him and his briefcase somewhere safe. Pretend you know all about whatever he says and don’t be surprised by what’s in the bag. He thinks it’s mine. Bye.”

  He slammed down the phone.

  “There’s a Cadillac crossing down at the low-water bridge,” Wendy said, walking back from the front of the house. “I’ll get Randall from his room. Are we still leaving?”

  Taylor Rusk felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

  “Not right away.”

  Taylor Rusk stood on the porch and watched the Cadillac climb from the low-water bridge. He could see two men in the
backseat.

  “Wendy”—he spoke through the closed door—“you and Randall hide and I’ll come find you.”

  The idea was to make Randall think it was a game. He could hear the boy giggle and scramble around inside while his mother shushed him desperately. The noise quieted. They already had the bathtub and mattress ready.

  The Cadillac nosed slowly up the hill and coasted into the shade of the big live oak.

  It was getting colder. The wind had turned around from the north. They were predicting snow in the panhandle and sleet in the hill country. The first norther of the year.

  “Stop here, asshole, and walk up to him.” The short, dark man looked over the stone house. “Find out the layout ... who else is here....” He kept his small round eyes moving over the outbuildings and the lay of the peaceful limestone bluff overlooking Dead Man Creek. “Might as well ask who those guys were in the pickup. We may have to kill them too.”

  “Jesus!” the driver whispered.

  Patch’s eyes snapped up to the rearview mirror, catching the driver’s gaze. His voice was flat and steady, low and controlled. His stare screamed of death and rage.

  “Hey, asshole! This is your deal! These people are getting clipped for you. So lay off the heavy breathing. Don’t become a beef; everybody’s expendable. Especially people who make themselves useless or get in the way. Now, get out there and get us invited right inside that rock house.” Patch kicked the driver through the seat, then turned aside to Hymie, who held the sawed-off pump shotgun. “If it’s rock inside we better be careful we don’t shoot ourselves. Fucking lead will bounce around in there like pinballs.”

  Hymie nodded thoughtfully as he readjusted the batting gloves he wore. Patch kicked the driver’s seat again; the driver was still transfixed in the mirror.

  “Go, asshole. Make small talk like an old friend. Tell him you got two fans who would just love to meet him.” Patch tightened his thin smile. “A couple of big shooters from New Orleans got a little post-season award for him and his family.”