The Franchise (54 page)

“Amen. Amen,” Billy Joe said, and began tapping his desk with a pencil.

Billy Joe dropped the pencil and snapped open a legal-looking document. “We were just with Brother Chandler at his ranch recently and he signed this pledge agreement. So you can see we are well on our way to reaching our goal of one hundred million dollars. Now is the time for the rest of you to get out your checkbooks, break open that piggy bank, get out that money you were saving for a rainy day and send it to us, because there is no better use for that money than in service of the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. We need to reach our one-hundred-million-dollar goal.”

“One hundred million dollars!” Taylor said to the television screen. “What are you building? The space shuttle, for Chrissakes?”

“... You all send what you can.” Billy Joe grinned. “We don’t expect everybody to send ten million.... Just send a million....” Billy Joe laughed; the fat guy in the wig joined quickly. Billy Joe Hardesty had made a joke.

Taylor flicked off the TV and stared at the ceiling until dawn.

The next day City Trust, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chandler Bank Holding Company, was robbed by a lone gunman of five thousand dollars. He waved a large-caliber revolver and demanded five thousand dollars in small used bills. Running from the building with a limp, the man escaped on a stolen motorcycle.

The Stadium Authority bonds went on sale two days later.

The Dome was on schedule for completion in the late summer. Chandler Construction was the general contractor. Cobianco Brothers Construction had the subcontract for the cement work.

Lamar Jean Lukas, one of the first to purchase a five-thousand-dollar bond, got a seat on the forty-two-yard line. He was quiet and sullen while forms were filled out, his knuckles white as he gripped the ticket counter.

Lamar’s behavior at the ticket office was not unusual for the early days. The bond scheme did not meet with immediate public approval, and several original ticket holders filed suit. One man was arrested for trying to hit the ticket agent; another took seventy-five stitches in his leg after kicking out a glass door.

When training camp began, some old fans were falling into line and new fans replaced the spaces left by dropouts. Each paid thousands of dollars for the right to buy a ticket for the Pistols games in the Dome.

It
was
the only game in town.

T
HE SETTING SUN WAS
squeezing the last drop of red from the sky when Taylor crossed the Dead Man Creek low-water bridge downstream from the terrifying dark green hole that had nearly taken Randall. Taylor shivered involuntarily as the car splashed over.

Up-country, rains had pushed water above the bridge and turned the stream dirty; twigs and small limbs were swirling along.

Once over the low-water crossing, Taylor watched the dirty brown creek. The water didn’t seem to be getting any higher. But Taylor could see lightning flashing to the southwest and north. It was going to rain hard soon. He hoped Wendy would get across before it started and Dead Man Creek went on a big rise.

The dying light caught the rippling glint of a water moccasin weaving along the shoreline, trying to stay out of the fast current. The cottonmouth was about four feet long, thick and black.

Loosening up his arm and shoulder, Taylor picked up a baseball-size rock and watched the cottonmouth work its way downstream, swimming directly away thirty yards below the bridge. Taylor took a short windup and threw.

The rock hit just behind the head and broke the neck. Taylor’s jaw fell open in amazement. Only the cottonmouth was more surprised; it thrashed against death.

Taylor Rusk watched as the snake sank in the boiling dark water. Thunder rumbled as he climbed back into his car, drove up to the hilltop, left his car in the oak motte behind the house and walked into the kitchen.

The light was on in the bunkhouse; Tommy McNamara’s typewriter was clacking away.

The main house was dark and cold.

Taylor set about building a small fire, nursed up the flame, then tossed on a good-size mesquite log. In the kitchen, searching the old white refrigerator, he found a bottle of Carta Blanca, then walked through the living room to the porch and the wide net hammock made to hold two people strung between the naked cedar posts. Taylor stretched across it sideways.

It was dark. Lightning flashed, momentarily wiping out the shadows and illuminating the rocky yard, the gnarled trees, and bushes along the old fence line. Quickly it was black again, but the vision persisted in Taylor’s brain as the thunder rolled down the canyon and bounced off Coon Ridge.

Taylor kept his feet on the porch stone and rocked himself slowly, gently, in the hammock. The breeze carried the scent of rain and honeysuckle. The lightning flashed frequently and the thunder came closer on the heels of the fire bolts.

Once Taylor saw a man moving up the bluff to the east, but the next fulmination revealed nothing but fence posts and persimmon. The man was just a figment of electricity, a persistence of imagination. A ghost.

A few big drops of rain thumped the tin roof of the porch. The lightning crashed nearer, louder, until the thunder and light became almost simultaneous. The rain picked up, hammering the tin roof, syncopated by the occasional bang of golfball-size hailstones.

The headlights of a car rounded Coon Ridge, crossed the low-water bridge and headed up the bluff toward the ranch house. When the car reached the bend at the big Spanish oak, lightning turned the night to day. Taylor watched Bob Travers’s white Ford heading straight toward him. Inside the car Bob rode in the passenger seat; Toby, his partner, was driving.

Wendy jumped out of the backseat and onto the porch. Bob wasn’t going to let a flash flood get between them.

She bent over and kissed Taylor on the mouth, then lay next to him crossways on the big hammock.

The rain drummed the tin roof, hailstones banging like rim shots.

Lightning flashed and crashed on all sides.

Taylor put his arm around Wendy, her head on his shoulder. “How’s Randall?”

“Doing fine. Lem’s with him tonight and asked me to thank you.” She held a small walkie-talkie in her hand—a small red light glowed, showing it was on and working. She reached behind herself and set the black radio on an old apple crate. “And Randall asked me to bring you to see him. It looks like you’ve made a friend.”

“Imagine that.” Taylor rocked the hammock slowly. “It only took me four years and I had to nearly kill him.”

“Lem cleaned out his desk down at the Franchise and moved back downtown in the First Texas Trust Building. The gas prices are going to make it worthwhile to reopen all those wells his daddy drilled and capped during the fifties, sixties and early seventies.” Wendy yawned. “Lem and Junior will probably get rich again. Junior hasn’t been doing much since the governor made him chairman of the regents.”

“Just dabbling in the two-billion-dollar endowment fund,” Taylor said, “up to his armpits.” Taylor continued to swing the hammock gently. Wendy took the beer bottle from his hand and drank.

“Cyrus gave
me
stock in the Franchise.” She handed the bottle back.

“Why?” Taylor replied. “The League frowns on franchises with more than one owner. The partners might squabble over their dirty laundry and the public would see backstage. The curtain protects the League’s integrity.”

“Integrity?”

“Yeah. Integrity—the final hiding place.”

“It’s better than
no
hiding place.”

“But it’s expensive. Integrity isn’t cheap.”

“Or easy,” Wendy added. “After Lem and I got married. I think he was feeling guilty.”

“Cyrus feeling guilty? I find that hard to believe.”

“So did Dick Conly. It really pissed him off.”

“Did he give Conly stock?”

“No. Nobody else got stock,” Wendy said. “Except Randall. When Randall was born, Conly established a trust for Randall and put ten percent of the Franchise stock in the trust every birthday after that. Under the conditions of the trust, the principal can’t be touched and only the interest or dividends can be spent,” Wendy continued as the lightning split the darkness and the thunder rumbled and banged off the mountain and canyon walls. The rain battered the tin roof. The hail ceased. “Randall wanted toy cars, but instead the trust holds forty percent of The Texas Pistols Franchise stock.”

“Who are the trustees?” Taylor was suddenly extremely interested.

“Me, my lawyer,” Wendy replied, “my mother and Dick Conly. Conly created it as a shelter from inheritance tax—a charitable nonprofit trust. But if the Pistol Dome hosts the Super Bowl, the trust’ll have so damn much money ...”

“Unless A.D., Suzy and the Cobianco boys get it first,” Taylor warned. “Once they get to the tickets ...”

“I imagine that was extra motive for Conly to look for a place to shelter the Franchise from taxes. And from Cyrus—so Dick didn’t bother to tell Cyrus that once the trust had fifty percent, Cyrus was odd man out. Conly puts the Franchise stock for Randall in the trust where even Cyrus can’t touch it. So he finally keeps his promise to Amos through Randall.”

“Dick is pretty clever. How much stock have
you
got?” Taylor asked. Another lightning bolt hit Coon Ridge with a sharp crack, like a giant pistol shot. Taylor and Wendy both flinched. It was a painful sound. A flash of fire.

“Ten percent.” Wendy drank the last of the Mexican beer.

“That’s the magic number—fifty percent. Your stock combined with the stock in the trust totals fifty percent on Randall’s next birthday. You and the trust will have control.”

Taylor eased out of the hammock, groaned and stood up. “We’d be a lot smarter, safer and happier if we followed Lem’s example and got the hell away from the Franchise.” Taylor walked toward the door. “Red’s decided to put the pedal to the metal and blow past everybody before they see us in the mirror.”

“The Super Bowl? This year?”

“Red’s become a real go-faster.” The quarterback stopped at the door. “A
too-faster.
I hope you’ve learned how my circuits work. You may have some rewiring to do by the time this season ends.”

“I’ll stock up on pennies for the burned-out fuses.”

“Very funny. We’ll probably all burn.”

The storm crashed and rumbled around the old stone house. In back the light was on inside the bunkhouse. The storm drowned out the sound of McNamara’s typewriter. Suddenly the wind shifted and swirled, lashing stinging drops of rain. Taylor held the door; Wendy ducked inside out of the storm to the warm glow of the fire.

“Speedo Smith quit as player rep and appointed me in his place.” Taylor prodded the flames with an old branding iron.

“Can he do that?” Wendy found a blue wool poncho and sat cross-legged on the Navajo rug between the stone fireplace and the brown couch.

“He says he can.” Taylor tossed on two small oak logs and a big chunk of mesquite. He dusted his big hands, put them on his knees and stood up, bending his head and shoulders backward, stretching his spine. Wendy could hear the vertebrae pop and crack. There was a loud snap. Taylor coughed and stopped his stretching. He coughed again, leaning forward, hands on his knees.

“What was
that?
” Wendy wrinkled her nose like he had done something distasteful.

“I’m not sure.” He straightened up again. “Lately it’s
always
the one that gets me.” Taylor coughed again and pointed at his rib cage over his heart. “I knocked some ribs loose and I don’t think they ever grew back. When they snap like that it knocks the wind out of me.” Taylor frowned and shrugged. “It just got bad recently.”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“Not one I would trust.” Taylor coughed and spat into the fire. He tasted blood. “Anyway, it’s been this way since before we got the sting routes and pass-blocking straight; we kept missing the stunts and blitzes. Some guy from New York speared me between the shoulder blades with his headgear.” Taylor’s voice softened and slowed as he recalled the incident. He seldom reminisced. “I had set up wrong or I would have seen him coming. I paid for it and never made that mistake again. The team doctor said it was just a deep bruise. Any deeper and I’d have a hole in my chest. It gets bad at night and I think about the guy that did it.” Taylor rotated his trunk, slowly, trying to loosen muscles and unlock frozen joints. “I heard he hurt his fucking neck.”

The guy
had
hurt his neck smashing his headgear into Taylor’s back. The big defensive lineman had stress fractures of two cervical vertebrae.
His
team doctor told him it was just a pinched nerve.

The cold rain pounded the tin roof.

“There’s a Union meeting in Houston soon and I’m thinking about going. Maybe stopping off and seeing Ginny Hendrix.”

Wendy nodded and stared silently into the glowing fireplace. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Wendy hugged her legs and rested her chin on her kneecaps. She was rocking forward and backward, a slight, slow motion.

Taylor stopped at the kitchen door and looked back at her. “I’m player rep by default and do have large and diverse interests in the game.” Taylor was trying to be rational. “My contract is causing a stir, and now you and Randall control half of the Franchise. I
better
go; it would be foolish to miss it.”

Wendy was now rocking harder, her gaze fixed on the flaming oak. She knew that Bobby Hendrix had died a violent death. The facts of his death had been horrifying enough. Wendy did not want to know the details. The details of Bobby’s death in Mexico might dissuade her from the choice she had made.

Wendy Chandler listened to the rain, watched the fire and swayed on the black rug, woven white birds in the gray center, trying to shut out the pictures and thoughts of Bobby Hendrix. She thought of Randall and what she and Taylor both owed him. She did not want to know about the Union and she didn’t want Taylor to get involved. She wanted the Franchise for her son; he’d paid for it. It was his by right of suffering. Suffering to come. She could think of no words that would not cause trouble between her and Taylor, so Wendy rocked and stared into the fire.