Paydirt

by Paul Levine

  "You just sound a little cornball," Christine said.

  "And very old school," Scott added. "Like civics class."

  "It's just a game, Bobby. The fate of civilization doesn't depend on who wins."

  "Not on who wins but on how it's played," Bobby said. "It's all about the drive for excellence, teamwork, and relentless effort against overwhelming odds."

  "And corporate greed, hype, and gluttonous excess," Christine said.

  "That too. That's why it's so damn American. But when the whistle blows, the distractions don't matter. For three hours on one day a year, we're all brought together. Kids believe in the Super Bowl long after they know there's no Santa Claus. It's become part of the fabric of our society and it shouldn't be meddled with any more than the Rocky Mountains should be leveled or the Great Lakes filled with sand. Let them play. We're not going to monkey with it. It would be wrong. It would be…

  He couldn't seem to find the word.

  "Un-American?" Christine helped out.

  "Bogus?" Scott suggested.

  "Sacriligious," Bobby said.

  Christine laughed. "Football as religion. Perfect."

  "The game is our secular religion," Bobby said. "Super Bowl Sunday is Christmas. The stadium is the church, the coaches the priests, the players-"

  "Altar boys?" Christine teased.

  "All right. I'm getting carried away, but I'm still not going to mess with it."

  "Even if it meant saving your own skin and getting the team away from my father?"

  "It wouldn't be right," Bobby concluded.

  "There's Craig!" Scott pointed at the television screen.

  Sure enough, there was number seven in cowboy garb, riding a spotted horse.

  "Must be an old video," Christine said. "That's Temptation, his favorite Appaloosa. That coloring is called the leopard pattern."

  On the screen, a grinning Craig Stringer sat astride a white horse with dark spots.

  "See that big spot on her haunch," Christine continued. "Craig always said it looked like the map of Texas. You can't see her hooves, but they're striped, like she's wearing old-fashioned socks." Christine grew silent a moment. "God, Craig was heartbroken when she died in the fire with the rest of the horses."

  Bobby stood and started clearing the breakfast plates. "Luckiest thing that ever happened to him."

  "What!" Christine nearly dropped her coffee cup.

  "Stringer was overextended. The race horses were eating up his capital along with their oats. Did you know he had to sue the insurance company to get paid?"

  "He told me the company was just playing hardball."

  Bobby laughed. "Yeah, they tend to do that when somebody burns down their own barn."

  "Arson? Are you saying Craig killed his own horses?"

  "It's not me saying it. It's the insurance investigator. They just couldn't prove it. Stringer won by claiming the fire started in the barn by spontaneous combustion."

  "What's that, Dad?" Scott asked.

  "Spontaneous combustion happens when you rub a million dollars in horseflesh up against a four million dollar insurance policy."

  Scott laughed, but Christine scowled at Bobby. "I'll never believe that," she said. "Craig might be vain, arrogant, and selfish, but he'd never do that, not to Temptation."

  On the screen, Stringer and his late Appaloosa were replaced by a commercial for a beer that will apparently attract bikini-clad young women to play volleyball on the beach.

  "That was his defense," Bobby said, "and it worked. But knowing Stringer, I think that's the proof that he did it. If he'd taken Temptation out of the barn that night and just killed the other horses, it might arouse suspicion. So he sacrificed the horse he supposedly loved to prove that he didn't do it. It's just like Craig, superficially clever but thoroughly cold and calculating."

  Christine looked at the television, studying Craig Stringer's face, as if she could divine the truth behind the plastic smile. "That's so Macchiavellian. I can't believe it. He hasn't ridden a horse since the fire. He says he can't bear to have any reminders of Temptation."

  "He probably feels guilty," Bobby said. "Maybe he even dreams about her. Nightmares of getting stomped to death."

  "Omigod, you're right!"

  "What?"

  "Craig told me he dreamed about Temptation. Not getting stomped, but riding her across a stream. It's too deep and she drowns while Craig swims away."

  "Fire into water. Wouldn't Freud have a ball with old number seven?" Bobby said.

  "Maybe we can use it somehow," Christine said. "Maybe between now and kickoff, you can get to him and-"

  "No," Bobby said. "Weren't you listening?"

  "There's a lot we could do, Dad.. Maybe we tell Denver's D-Line to yell 'Temptation' when Craig is calling signals. Maybe we do something with the horses in the halftime show. Maybe we start a fire under the bench, I don't know."

  "For the last time, no!"

  "Your father's right," Christine said.

  "But you just said-"

  "We're not going to tamper with the game," she said, firmly.

  "Okay, okay. Whatever you guys say."

  "Good," Christine said. Then, as Bobby turned toward the dishes in the sink, she winked at her son. "We'll never do anything your father forbids, okay Scott?"

  "You got it, Mom," he said, winking right back.

  "It would be easier to bribe the President of the United States and the entire Senate and Congress than to fix a Super Bowl."

  — Sonny Reizner, Las Vegas bookmaker

  45

  Super Sunday

  Yesterday's ice sculptures had become today's dirty dishes. All the stone crabs, smoked shrimp cakes, and Swedish meatballs had been eaten. All the street festivals, Fortune 500 shindigs, blimp rides, bay cruises, alligator wrestles, and golf tournaments were over. The sports page blather and TV yackety-yack had wound down, the commentators seizing on "focus" as this year's Super Word: "The team that keeps its focus should win today."

  The bookies, hookers, and hucksters had finished their business, though pickpockets, souvenir hawkers, and scalpers were still working the parking lots and access roads. The schmoozing, networking, freebie glomming, and manufactured gaiety were coming to an end with the last of the pre-game bashes. All the gaudy TV spots were in the can, ready to be unwound at forty-five thousand dollars a second.

  It was time for The Game.

  Super Sunday for America and a super day for me, Bobby thought. Denver had a decent chance of covering the four-point spread. He had his wife and child back, and his heart was a cup overflowing with infinite possibilities. He and Christine could end up owning the franchise and running the team. Scott would bask in their love and thrive. The boy could become a physicist or the best oddsmaker in Vegas, it didn't matter. Sun Life Stadium was filling up, seventy-five thousand fans by kickoff, but it seemed unusually quiet to Bobby during pre-game warm-ups. Too many corporate bigwigs, too few true fans. Too many helicopters buzzing like mosquitoes, dropping off celebs and wannabees at the "corporate hospitality village," a classic oxymoron. Too many limos-more than one thousand-lined up outside the stadium, including one sad, sagging Lincoln that Bobby had piloted with Christine and Scott in the back. And too many quiche and Chardonnay fans in the party tents surrounding the stadium, too few boilermaker and bratwurst guys inside.

  Bobby wore chinos and running shoes with a Channel 9 windbreaker and figured he looked liked he belonged on the sidelines, which is where he was, the appropriate credentials dangling from a chain on his neck. Christine and Scott were in Kingsley's suite, and Bobby couldn't help wondering what the wind chill factor was between father and daughter. On the field, pre-game warmups were almost completed. Under the stands, Christina Aguilera was warming up her vocal cords to warble the National Anthem.

  Bobby watched Mike Skarcynski head toward the tunnel with the rest of the Denver offense. Back to the locker room for a few minutes before kickoff. He'd been sharp in warm-ups, tossi
ng bullets to the wide receivers. "Go get 'em, Skar!" Bobby yelled, just a short down-and-out from the QB.

  Skar responded with a thumbs-up sign. "Gonna rope those Mustangs!"

  "He'd better," a voice said.

  Bobby turned to find Vinnie LaBarca. "I only got a sideline pass for pre-game, so I'm going up to the club seats. You got everything under control, Gallagher?"

  "Nothing to control. You hedge your bet?"

  "And then some. I need the Pats to cover." LaBarca blew his nose into a handkerchief with the sound of a foghorn. His eyes were rimmed with red. "Damn allergies."

  "We're on the same side today," Bobby said. "We both want Denver to win or lose by less than four."

  "Right. So what else you got going? Did you poison the Mustangs' pre-game meal? You gonna stick a hypodermic full of barbs in Stringer's ass on the way out of the locker room?"

  "Nothing like that, Vinnie. We're just gonna let them play."

  "What! You said-"

  "C'mon Vinnie, it's a beautiful day. The sun is shining. A breeze is blowing."

  "Yeah, blowing pollen and melaleuca shit right up my nose."

  "Let's enjoy the game the way it was meant to be played."

  "Who gives a shit about the game? I don't care if the ball is inflated or filled with feathers. I just wanna win."

  "And maybe you will."

  "You better hope so. If Denver don't cover, I'm looking for you to make it good."

  "Hey, that wasn't part of the deal."

  "The deal is what I say it is. Right Dino?"

  Bobby turned to find Dino Fornecchio, both ankles in casts, an aluminum cane in each hand. "Fucking A," Fornecchio said, aiming the tip of one cane at Bobby's midsection as if it were a gun.

  Bobby laughed. "Maybe you haven't noticed, Vinnie, but your tough guy can't even unzip his fly without help."

  "You bastard!" Fornecchio swiped at Bobby's knees with his cane but missed and nearly fell.

  Bobby was no longer scared. Amazing. Assured of Chrissy's love, he had confidence now, and the world looked took on a different look. The winds that once seemed poised to blow him away were cooling breezes. Vinnie LaBarca had once seemed so menacing, but look at him now, a red-nosed clown, sniffling into his handkerchief. As for Fornecchio, he couldn't find his dick with both hands.

  "I owe you, asshole," Fornecchio said.

  "I'll put it on your tab," Bobby said, then headed for the tunnel under the stands. He felt liberated, his life a rubber ball that keeps bouncing higher and higher instead of losing momentum. He was a new Bobby Gallagher, and it felt great.

  "This feels like my lucky day," he said aloud.

  "Then I'd hate to see your unlucky day," said the man's voice behind him.

  What the hell? Bobby turned. Standing in front of him, legs spread, arms dangling at his side, was Crew Cut, burly and menacing in a nylon windbreaker. He had a thick neck and tiny, pink pigs' ears. Before Bobby could say a word, a punch was coming at him. He tried to duck, but all he saw was a giant fist blocking out the light, following his movement. He felt it then, an explosion that started at his chin and rocketed into his brain, thunderclaps of noise and blinding fireworks of pain. As he fought to keep his balance, Bobby realized he was staggering back one step, then two, and he had the sensation of falling down, but before he hit the ground, the world had already faded to black.

  Both teams must have been feeling the pressure, Christine thought, because the first quarter was played with the sloppy ineffectiveness of an exhibition game. Dallas fumbled on its first possession, but Denver squandered the opportunity by consecutive holding penalties followed by an intercepted pass. They exchanged punts twice, and finally, Craig Stringer put together a drive that resulted in a field goal by Boom Boom Guacavera. At the end of the first quarter, Dallas led, 3–0.

  Until today, Christine had never paid much attention to the game itself. Not that she lacked knowledge of the sport's subtleties. If she took the trouble to watch a rookie offensive lineman just before the snap, she could predict run or pass from whether he leaned forward or rocked back in his three-point stance. She appreciated the cleverness of a passing play that created a mismatch with a fleet running back being covered by a lead-footed linebacker, and she understood the raw courage it took for a punt returner to face a Pickett's charge of onrushing tacklers.

  But usually, she was content to ride with the general ebb and flow of the game, enjoying the moments when her father and her son joyfully high-fived each other.

  Today was different.

  Today she watched every play through binoculars, gritting her teeth when Dallas made a first down or got the benefit of a questionable penalty. She and Scott sat in Siberia, the last row of the suite. Just before kickoff, her father had looked right through her and asked Scott to join him in the front row.

  "That's okay, Pop. I'll stay here with Mom."

  "C'mon Scott, who's going to help me call the plays?"

  Scott shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Sorry Pop, but I'm rooting for Denver today."

  Kingsley could not have looked more shocked if his grandson had announced he was a cross-dressing, communist drug dealer. The old man's face came apart at the seams, his jaw muscles quivering, a tic pulsating above one eye. "It's sinful, Christine, to turn a child against his grandfather."

  "No, the sin is trying to take the child from his father and mother."

  "There'll be a day of reckoning," he said, icily. "There'll be a judgment day."

  "It's today, Martin," she said, using his given name for the first time in her life. It was the final break, she knew, and it filled her with pain.

  At the sound of his own name coming from those lips, Kingsley blinked rapidly as if unexpectedly slapped by a dinner companion. Without another word, he turned and headed for his seat in the front row.

  It all came back to her in a flood of conflicting emotions. Her father had been everything. He had doted on her and treated her like a princess, and even now, after she had peeled away the gilt-edged wrapping that had hidden who he was, even after the disillusionment, she knew that she loved him still. But that only made the pain worse.

  Bobby was vaguely aware of a man's voice, and then a crackle of noise. It took a moment to realize the man was speaking into a walkie-talkie, then listening to a reply. Maybe it was his imagination, but the scratchy reply sounded like Martin Kingsley.

  Bobby opened his eyes and tried to flex his neck. His head was a sack of cement, and his jaw seemed to be attached to rusty hinges. He could barely open his mouth to lick his parched lips. Several little men were inside his skull banging cymbals in a very poor rendition of the 1812 Overture. When the cobwebs cleared, he realized he was sitting on a bare concrete floor, his hands cuffed behind him. A maze of wires and cables criss-crossed overhead and plugged into dozens of panels. He could hear the crowd noise and what sounded like distant music.

  "Do you know where you are?" Crew Cut asked. The bastard was standing at a small window overlooking the field.

  "An electrical closet, somewhere in the press box," Bobby said.

  "So far up, you can barely see the field. In case you're interested, and I know you are, Dallas is ahead, ten zip, at the half. There's some show horses down on the field and a bunch of Disney characters lip-synching. It's the most sorry shit you've ever seen."

  Somewhere on the other side of the electrical panels a door opened, then closed with a harsh metallic clang. He heard footsteps on the hard floor. "Hey!" Bobby called out. "Help me! "Help!"

  "No one can hear you up here, except God hisself," Kingsley said, rounding the corner and looming above Bobby. He turned to Crew Cut. "Good work, George."

  "Where's it going to end, Martin?" Bobby said, his words thick, his jaw aching.

  "First you broke league rules, now the criminal laws. You can't go on. It's over. You're going to lose the franchise when word gets out."

  Kingsley looked at him with such a cold hatred that Bobby felt a chill go up his spin
e. "Still trying to reform me, aren't you Robert? If I was you, I'd be more worried about my own hide, because from up here, you're the one who looks like the frog in the frying pan."

  "What are you going to do, Martin, kill me so you don't have to give up two per cent of your stock?"

  Kingsley's laugh was a series of clicks, like a ticking bomb. "Two per cent? You must think I'm stupid, Robert. I know what you're cooking up. With you twisting everything around and turning Christine against me, you're after control of the team. That's been your plan all along, hasn't it? You've known me a long time. Do you really think I'd let that happen?"

  "Killing me won't stop it. My two per cent will go to Scott."

  "Precisely, and within a month or so, I'll be the lawful guardian of Scott and Christine will be hospitalized and medicated."

  A bolt of red-hot anger shot through Bobby. "You bastard! Chrissy will fight you with everything she's got."

  "The poor child will be distraught after your suicide. I don't know how effective an advocate she'll be."

  "Suicide?" Bobby asked, ice water rushing through his veins.

  "What would a man with a history of instability and self destructive behavior be likely to do? Hell, you looked like you were cracking up last night at the Commissioner's party. Who would be surprised if you did a swan dive off the back of the press box?"

  Kingsley's eyes were as dead as pieces of stone, and Bobby had no doubt he was serious.

  "Do you think that will get your daughter back?"

  "Maybe not today or tomorrow, but eventually. You're the one who drove her away, and when you're gone, when she realizes that she hitched her wagon to a dead mule, she'll come back. I'll raise Scott to be ten times the man you ever were. I'll raise him to be like me, and she'll thank me for it."

  "You heartless son-of-a-bitch!" Bobby struggled against the handcuffs. He wanted to leap at Kingsley, to smash him into the electrical panels and fry the man's brains, but he could only get to his knees, his hands still locked behind his back.