The Franchise (43 page)

“Don’t worry, Taylor, I can take care of myself. Besides, what can they do besides blacklist me, and they already did that.”

“I don’t know what they can do, Speedo, but Dick Conly was a brilliant man. Add ten points to A.D. Koster’s IQ and you have a plant. He’s just as dangerous as R.D. Locke.”

B
UFFY
D’H
ANIS GOT
the kids down for a nap and took the phone off the hook. She slept restlessly, fearfully, and awoke near dark in a sweat, deeply frightened, breathing hard, her heart thumping against her ribs. She did not recall a nightmare or frightening dream ... just a free-floating terror ... night terrors. She touched the bruise on her cheek and lay scared, waiting for Simon to return from another fruitless day of raging and straining to rehabilitate his ruined knee. She gave up trying to talk to him about it and just hoped he worked himself to exhaustion and quickly fell asleep when he returned.

She heard a small cry, then a wail, echo through the small Park City apartment. Simon Taylor D’Hanis had awakened from his nap and was hungry, and Buffy’s breasts were withered and dry. The small boy’s squall was a ringing accusation rebounding off the walls.

Buffy dragged herself from bed and stumbled into the kitchen to start the bottle warmer, then straightened her shoulders, pasted a smile across her face and went into the baby’s room. The little boy lay on his back and wailed in hurt and fear. The sound caused Buffy physical pain and she picked up the baby to try to soothe him.

“There, there, little Taylor, Momma’s here.” She sat down in the white wicker rocker and cooed to her youngest child, hoping he wouldn’t wake the others. She wasn’t sure she could deal with them all. “There now, Taylor, everything’s going to be all right.” She held him against her dry breasts and rocked. “There, there, Taylor ... there, there.” She started to hum a song when she heard the timer on the bottle warmer go off. She walked into the kitchen, cuddling and talking to the baby boy.

“There, there, little Taylor, Momma’s got a bottle for you.” She shook a few drops against her wrist, then popped the nipple into his searching mouth. He sucked contentedly and Buffy walked back to the rocking chair.

“Little Taylor ... there ... there ... Taylor ... there ... there ...” Buffy drifted off continuing to drone comfort to the baby in her arms. “There ... there ... Taylor ...” A noise at the bedroom door jerked her awake. Simon stood there, glaring at her. His face was red, flushed, his eyes bloodshot.

“His goddam name is Simon. Taylor Rusk just got my ass traded to LA,” the giant man yelled, and then disappeared down the hall. Buffy’s stomach knotted up. The baby began to cry. A door slammed down the hall and the other children woke up, crying and scared. The baby began to spit up the formula. Buffy cried softly and wiped at the baby’s mouth with a diaper. She could hear glass breaking in their bedroom as Simon broke the dresser mirror with his fist.

K
IMBALL
A
DAMS WAS
waiting at the Cozumel airport with two VW vans and four Mayan Indians to carry the luggage. They drove quickly from the airport, turning north when they reached the downtown waterfront. The road was little more than a single lane of concrete or asphalt, depending on the materials available. The vans roared north at top speed, dodging the
turistas
in the striped and fringe-topped Jeeps. They hurtled up the newly constructed road until it abruptly ended.

A dark man waved the vans to a halt with a small red flag where a slow-moving construction gang labored with the most primitive of implements. The lead van screeched and squalled to a stop, and the second van bumped it slightly. The swarthy, sullen Mayans worked in the hot Caribbean sun, prying rocks up with wrecking bars, pickaxes and shovels. They smoothed out the roadbed with sand shoveled from a big pile and leveled it with a two-by-six board with handles nailed at each end. The pavement was mixed in a small portable cement mixer. The road-building process was purposely slow to keep people employed. Modern machinery was neither wanted nor needed.

While they waited for the Mayan flag man to wave them through, Kimball turned from the front seat.

“There’s no unemployment on the island,” he said to Bobby and Ginny Hendrix. Taylor and Speedo sat in the far back of the van with the two Hendrix boys. The second van carried the luggage. “If a guy loses his job, they throw him off the island. The mayor says it’s better than paying welfare and they have no crime.”

“Depends on your definition of crime,” Speedo said.

An explosion suddenly lifted the van off the ground and tossed the occupants around like rag dolls. Rocks and dirt rained down on them. Ginny and Kimball both screamed while Speedo and Taylor dove on top of the small boys.

“What the fuck was that?” Hendrix yelled.

“Dynamite,” the driver said laconically. He pointed at a gaping hole smoking in the center of the roadbed about fifteen feet in front of them. “All rock, very hard. Sometimes use dynamite for big rock.”

The young Hendrix boys squealed and laughed after the first moments of shock.

“That’s just how we got Hitler, boys,” Taylor whispered to them as he crawled back to his seat. Speedo’s mouth hung open, eyes wide.

The driver steered around the fuming hole and continued north on the unfinished road, which ended at a tall white hotel sprawled out to the water’s edge. The beach sand was white and the Caribbean rippled a cobalt blue.

The van lurched to a stop in front of the hotel.

The Hendrix boys piled out first and ran screaming through the hotel lobby out to the pool area and the beach beyond.

While the Mexican drivers alternately unloaded the luggage and held their hands out for tips, Kimball excused himself.

“I have to call downtown and tell them you have arrived.” Kimball disappeared into the hotel lobby.

Ginny quickly pursued her children to the beach to make sure they didn’t drown one another. Taylor and Bobby crossed the marble lobby floor to the registration desk, leaving Speedo to deal with the drivers and bellboys, all of whom acted as if they had never seen a black man before.

Kimball returned while Bobby and Taylor were signing the register.

“The phones are out,” Kimball announced. “The road crew blew down a telephone pole earlier today. Everybody else is staying at one of the downtown hotels near the harbor. You’re the last ones to arrive. They’ve been scouting out the fishing for the last few days. It hasn’t been too good around the island and they’re thinking about going to a place on the mainland. Bobby, why don’t you come with me and we’ll find out what’s happening. We’ll leave Fresh Meat in charge here. Okay, Taylor?”

Taylor nodded and finished filling out his registration form.

Hendrix paused a moment, looking out toward the beach and his wife and kids. “Keep an eye on them, will you, Taylor?” the tall, thin receiver asked. “Tell ’em I’ll see them in a little while. We might as well get this show on the road.”

“Don’t worry, Bobby, I’ll look after them,” Taylor said, listing his occupation as quarterback on the registration form, just to see what the grinning desk clerk did with the information. “Say hello to Dudley for me.” Taylor Rusk signed his registration card. “And push Charlie Stillman overboard the first chance you get.”

Kimball and Hendrix had reached the door, but Taylor could hear his redheaded friend laugh. Then Bobby clenched his fist and held it over his head. Though he didn’t turn around, Taylor knew he was smiling.

S
PEEDO
S
MITH WALKED
up to the desk, pushing a wad of bills back in his pocket. “Where are they going?”

“Downtown to get the itinerary,” Taylor replied. “Come on, I already signed you in.” He tossed Speedo his room key and grabbed up two others, his and Hendrix’s.

“Thanks.” Speedo snatched the key out of the air. “I’m going up to my room and vomit, then I think I’ll take a nap.” He stripped out of his linen jacket and held out his muscular coal-black arms for Taylor’s inspection. “Then tomorrow I’ll work on my tan.” Speedo walked over to the winding staircase that led to his second-floor room, which overlooked the brilliant blue sea. Taylor walked outside, stopped at the bar by the pool and bought two Cokes and two tall glasses of planter’s punch.

Taylor handed Ginny a tall glass and set the Cokes on the rock next to her. She was watching the boys, who had shucked their clothes and were splashing around in their underwear.

“Where’s Bobby?” Ginny asked without taking her eyes off the boys.

“He went off with Kimball.”

“Damn!” Ginny sipped on her drink, then set her glass next to the Cokes. “I hate Kimball Adams. Can you believe Bobby wanted to name one of our boys after him?”

“Kimball isn’t so bad,” Taylor lied, trying to soothe Ginny’s obvious discomfort. “He’s from the Old League.”

“Bullshit,” Ginny said. “He’s from under a rock.
Bobby’
s from the Old League. When we were in Cleveland, the gamblers used to take our games off the board about half the time, Kimball was so obvious about shaving points.”

“Kimball said nobody ever noticed,” Taylor replied.

“Well, everybody always noticed. Shit.” Ginny kept her eyes on the two boys wrestling in the Caribbean. Taylor had never heard Ginny swear before. Now, talking about Kimball Adams, she swore continually.

“Bobby’s sick,” she said.

Taylor looked out at Bobby Hendrix junior. “Maybe you shouldn’t have brought him down here.”

“Not Bobby junior,” she said, “Bobby, my husband and your most dependable receiver. He’s real sick. Something about his blood. I don’t know exactly; I heard Gus talking about it to the doctor. They found it when he got his physical for the company insurance before they went in on this VCO drilling deal, which I also think is sick if not dead.”

“Are you sure?”

“No. I’m not sure about anything. I never have been, but I watch and listen.” Ginny sipped her drink and watched her youngest boys in their dripping, sagging underpants. “I’ve lived in that big River Oaks house most of my life except the time we spent in Cleveland. I can tell when things aren’t right under the roof of that house.” She took a long, gulping drink. “And things aren’t right. Why did he go off with goddam Kimball?”

The six-year-old pushed his younger brother under the water.

“Bobby! You stop that or I’ll whip your ass right here in front of everybody,” Ginny yelled. The boys were shocked by their mother’s cursing outburst; so was Taylor.

“Bobby’s such a roughneck,” Ginny said. “But then, so is Billy. He worships his brother no matter what he does to him. I can’t remember the older boys acting like this ... but I was younger and stronger then.”

“Me too. What’s this all about, Ginny? I’ve never seen you like this.”

“I’m sorry, Taylor, it’s not your problem.”

“It is as long as I’m sitting on this rock. Now, come on, tell me.”

Ginny watched her two boys for a while and sipped her drink. The shadow of the hotel crept up behind them. “I think VCO pulled out of the drilling deal with Gus and Bobby, reneged on the dry-hole money and broke them,” she said. “Gus and Bobby don’t know I know, as if they could keep it from me. I guess they wanted me to enjoy this trip. All I wanted was for Bobby to enjoy the trip and forget about the money, football and the Players Union. I thought he might get to feeling better, but instead goddam Kimball Adams hauls him off the minute we get here.” Tears filled her eyes and her hands shook. “And goddam Kimball Adams is up to no good and never has been. If something happens to Bobby, I’ll kill Kimball with my bare hands.”

“Bobby’s a grown man. He can take care of himself.”

Ginny turned and glared at Taylor. “I told you he was sick, and one thing I know is that being around Kimball isn’t going to make him feel better. It never did. If it hadn’t been for Kimball, Bobby wouldn’t be near as broken up as he is now. Half the passes Bobby caught, Kimball meant to be intercepted. Bobby’s taken enough Butazolidin and cortisone in the last years to kill a horse, and now he’s got something wrong with his blood and you tell me not to worry, he’s a big boy. Well, if you believe
that
, you are a jerk.” Ginny wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “You can’t even claim your own son because Cyrus Chandler won’t let you and you tell
me
not to worry.”

“How did you know about Randall?”

Ginny shook her head and looked at Taylor. “There aren’t any secrets on a football team.” She turned away from Taylor, who sat with his mouth hanging open.

“Boys!” Ginny Hendrix yelled. “Boys! Uncle Taylor brought you drinks. Come on out of the water.” The two thin brown boys stopped splashing and looked at one another.

“Yippee,” they yelled in chorus, and struggled ashore, racing each other to the rock and the waiting glasses of cola. The boys drank greedily.

Ginny looked hard at Taylor Rusk. “Now, tell them that you and their daddy didn’t kill Hitler.”

B
Y NIGHTFALL
B
OBBY
and Kimball failed to appear and the phones were still out, so Taylor rented a Jeep. He didn’t know what he expected to find or how, but it was better than sitting around the hotel.

The Jeep’s candy-striped top was down, but it was too much trouble to put it up. The latches had rusted off and baling wire hung from the hooks on the windscreen. The night was warm and the moon was bright. The road was visible without the weak flare of light from the one good headlight.

The road widened into a boulevard as it wound past the harbor, and Taylor slowed to look at the boats at anchor. There were several sleek sailing ships, several big cabin cruisers and a replica of an old Spanish treasure galleon. The harbor was quiet; the only sound was the water slapping against the hulls of the various ships. Taylor sat quietly and thought about Ginny Hendrix, angry and frustrated, alone and a long way from home. Taylor planned to ask Terry Dudley about Harrison H. Harrison, president of VCO and member of Spur. Terry would know; he kept track of those sorts of things.