The Franchise (4 page)

Red no longer recruited players. “Why recruit?” he said. “I’m the kind of coach who can take mine and beat your’n and then take your’n and beat mine.”

It was almost true. It was absolutely true that as a result of this policy the slush-fund money still poured in, but little of it went out anymore.

Red Kilroy reached his peak with Taylor Rusk and he knew it, and he knew Taylor knew it. Red Kilroy already had plans to move when Taylor Rusk won the Heisman Trophy.

Taylor’s acceptance speech consisted of three words: “I deserve it.”

T
HE
N
EW
O
RLEANS
Bowl committee and the television network had promised six hundred thousand dollars to each school. The Bowl Game would feature Taylor Rusk. Red Kilroy and the university team ranked number one nationally against the team ranked number two.

“A true national championship game” was how the Bowl committee and the network promoted it. They paid Taylor ten thousand cash to make certain a nagging hamstring pull wouldn’t keep him out of the game.

Taylor took the ten thousand dollars and kept quiet about the hamstring, which was never more than a rumor, let alone an actual pull. The rumor alone affected the spread by seven and a half points.

“Jerry Ball,
The Denver Post
” announced a balding reporter who approached Taylor in the French Quarter before the Bowl Game. He was covering the college scene, waiting on the guy who had the pro football beat to have a heart attack. “What about Red Kilroy?”

“Well, Jerry ...” Taylor noticed how Jerry had carefully placed his remaining hair across the dead zones of his scalp. The New Orleans dampness had defeated his purpose, sticking his few remaining strands together, plastered flat. “Red Kilroy always felt players should want to play for him. He has a good pro system and is a good judge of talent. He can run them around his desk in their street clothes and know everything he has to know.” This was the same story Taylor told anyone who asked about his coach.

“How would you describe”—balding Jerry seemed to be dissolving in the humidity—“winning the Heisman Trophy?”

Taylor thought for a moment, furrowed lines dug between his eyes across his thick brow ridge.

“Well,” Taylor said, walking off, “it’s a lot like getting caught in a corn picker.”

It was a rare cool, sunny, dry day. After an easy stroll up Toulouse he turned down along Royal Street, heading for Rampart Street past Bienville. Ahead near Rampart a big white Victorian house with three stories of bay windows, verandas and porches was set back off the street behind a wrought-iron fence. The windows were all draped in bright red velvet.

As Taylor passed, the front door opened and Dick Conly stepped out; he didn’t notice Taylor until he reached the gate. They passed within six feet of each other. Taylor said hello and stopped; Conly just nodded and moved rapidly down the street. Looking at the house, Taylor saw a swarthy face in a second-story window. Then the red velvet closed.

In the Bowl Game, Taylor Rusk threw twenty-nine for thirty-four and five touchdowns. Simon D’Hanis and the rest of the line protected him like a pack of Dobermans. A.D. Koster intercepted two passes, running one back thirty-six-yards for a touchdown.

They won forty-five to seven.

Later, walking from the locker room with Simon and A.D., heading for the bus back to the hotel, Taylor Rusk was hit in the face. Launched out of the darkness of the Bowl, a Grapette bottle smashed into Taylor’s nose, tearing and dislocating the septum. He needed ten stitches to close the gash between his eyes.

Taylor healed fast with little discomfort or scar. He wondered where the Grapette bottle had come from.
And why.

Taylor Rusk figured he had a loose sleeve flapping near the corn picker.

T
HE PHONE RANG.

“If it’s Cobianco about the rent,” Abraham Dwight Koster said from the back bedroom, “tell him I’ll bring it down in the morning.”

“Dammit, A.D.,” Simon D’Hanis said, “we gave you the money two weeks ago!” D’Hanis was hunched down in front of the old console television, trying to tune in the afternoon movie. He twisted and turned the rabbit ears covered with aluminum foil. A face appeared on the screen amid the static snowstorm. The face spoke with a thick accent.

“Akim Tamiroff.” Simon pointed at the television and settled back on the worn green couch. Simon watched a lot of movies, proud of his vast store of old movie trivia; he always named the actors as they appeared on the screen.

The phone continued to ring.

Taylor Rusk entered from the outside. He was returning from his journalism class and heard the ringing from the stairway up to the second-story apartment. Knowing his roommates would never answer it, the quarterback took the last steps two at a time and caught the phone on the sixth ring.

“If that’s Cobianco, tell him I’ll be down with the rent in the morning,” A.D. Koster repeated.

Taylor frowned and looked at D’Hanis, who shrugged, then pointed at the screen with a thick finger. “Akim Tamiroff.”

Simon stretched his six-foot-four-inch, two-hundred-fifty-pound frame out on the green couch. The springs and wooden frame groaned, the plastic squeaked.

“Hello?” Taylor Rusk held the phone and began to shuck his tan jacket with his free hand. There was silence on the line. “Hello? ... Hello?” Taylor was aware of his own heavy breathing. He dropped his jacket across the back of the white wing chair, waiting for sound on the line.

“Is this Taylor Rusk?” The voice was deep and mysterious.

“Yeah.”

“Listen very carefully. Follow the instructions I give you and do not reveal the contents of this phone conversation to anyone.”

“What?” Taylor looked over at Simon to exchange a quizzical glance, but a new actor had appeared on the TV screen, and the big man was trying to identify him in the blizzard of static. “What is this?” Taylor spoke into the phone with irritation.

“Just be quiet. Listen and learn. The Brotherhood has been watching you.”

“The Brotherhood?” Taylor said sharply. “What Brotherhood?”
Another goddam crank call
, he thought, frowning, and the pull of the skin made his recently broken nose hurt. He continued to frown despite the ache.

“I told you to be quiet and just listen.” The voice tried to take command. It was a strained sternness.

Taylor Rusk rolled his eyes, let out a long slow sigh, hooked the phone with his shoulder and began to look through the mail left on the phone table. There was a letter from his mother. Mail from Two Oaks, Texas. A long way away.

“Tomorrow night at midnight, come to the Tower dressed in old clothes ...”

“All I got is old clothes, buddy.”

“Remain silent,” the voice snapped.

Taylor detected the East Coast accent. A rich kid sent to learn Texas, help keep it colonized, and look after Daddy’s investments.

“Now, wear old clothes to the Tower. Bring one large onion, a bra, panties and a length of twine at least two feet long ...”

A.D. Koster stepped out of the back bedroom and looked at Taylor, his eyes expectant. Freshly showered, shaven and lotioned, A.D. was slipping into a brown sport coat that set off nicely against his white shirt and brown tie, gray slacks and new brown alligator shoes. A.D. liked to dress. He did a pirouette for Taylor to get the full effect of A.D. Koster on the make. It was pretty impressive.

Taylor pointed at the phone and shrugged his shoulders. He made a twirling motion at the side of his head with his left index finger.

“... and two Marks-A-Lot felt pens in green and white.” The mysterious voice continued, droning out of the receiver. “Be sure to be at the Tower at exactly—”

“Look, buddy,” Taylor interrupted. “I’m busy, I don’t have the time.”

“I told you not to interrupt—”

“I’m not interrupting. You go right on talking through your nose.” Taylor grinned at A.D. “But I am hanging up.”

“No, wait, you don’t understand!”

“Sorry, but a very beautiful boy has just walked in, demanding my attention.”

“No, wait!”

Taylor hung up.

“Who was that?” Simon asked from the couch. The movie was off and a commercial was on the TV screen.

“Some guy wanted me to bring an onion and women’s underwear down to the Tower at midnight tomorrow.” Taylor picked up the letter from his mother.

“Send him instead.” Simon looked at A.D. straightening his tie and shirt cuffs. “He looks dressed for it.”

A.D. smoothed his hair down, using the window as a mirror. It was getting dark outside.

“No.” Taylor pursed his lips, trying to organize his thoughts. “The guy said to wear old clothes. A.D. doesn’t have any, do you, A.D.?”

“Not if I got anything to say about it.” A.D. Koster watched himself in the darkening window. He turned and looked back over his shoulder at his rear view.

Taylor watched A.D. Koster admire his own reflection. “What’s this about owing Cobianco the rent money? I thought we paid two weeks ago.” Taylor turned to Simon, who pointed at A.D.’s reflection and went back to watching television. The commercial was over.

“I just haven’t taken it down there yet,” Koster said. “I been busy as hell. I’ll get it in the morning. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried,” Taylor said. “It’s your name on the lease if you lost our money gambling. I figure those brown alligators are my size, and for his satisfaction Simon will jam your bare feet up your ass.”

D’Hanis nodded, his eyes on the screen.

“God knows
what
the Cobiancos will do, though,” Taylor added.

“You guys, knock it off.” A.D. spoke a little too hard. “I just forgot, that’s all.”

“As long as you didn’t forget at one of those poker games over at the Deke house,” Taylor said. “Scared money never wins, A.D.”

A.D. laughed too hard and hit Taylor on the shoulder. “Put your coat back on and come with me. I wanna show you my new girl.”

Taylor picked up the letter from his mother. “I’ll read this instead.”

“C’mon, you can read it later.” A.D. grabbed Taylor with one hand and his coat with the other. “Besides, there isn’t anything interesting in there.”

“How do you know?” Taylor moved along toward the door.

“No checks or anything; I already looked,” A.D. said. “You coming, Simon?”

“Buffy’s on her way over from the Pi Phi house,” Simon grunted, staring at the TV.

“Just you and Buffy and Akim Tamiroff,” A.D. said. “How cozy. Come on, Taylor, wait till you see this one. Besides, I got a favor to ask.”

The alarm went off in the back of his brain, but Taylor allowed himself to be pushed along. The quarterback shrugged back into the tan jacket.

Simon heard them go down the stairs, followed shortly by the sound of Roster’s blue Chevrolet convertible starting, rattling and squeaking out of the parking lot.

The phone began to ring again. Simon never moved.

The familiar square face appeared on the screen.

“Akim Tamiroff,” Simon said.

The phone rang fifteen times and stopped. Simon never took his eyes from the snowy screen.

“D’H
ANIS AND HIS
goddam television.”

A.D. was shivering like a wet dog, talking fast and bouncing on the car seat. Taylor figured he was speeding.

“I talked to Red today about going with the Franchise. I already know his system. I could help the team a lot. Maybe player-coach. Pro management as my life plan could be a big break.”

“Save it for Red, A.D.” Taylor leaned back and stretched, relaxing for the first time since he had hit the floor running at six that morning. Taylor Rusk always took a double load of classes in the spring to make up for the light loads he carried in the fall, when he was playing ball, and in the winter, when he was coming down and healing up. That spring he carried a triple load in order to graduate on time.

“Jesus, Taylor, this could be a big break for me. Couldn’t you talk to ... ?”

“I’m not going to Red. Now forget it.” Taylor wanted to relax and tried not to think about the rent money he was certain A.D. had again lost gambling. A.D. always lost at cards. Driven by the dangerous combination of greedy ambition and fearful machismo, he was a lousy gambler.

Simon D’Hanis and Taylor Rusk sublet from A.D., who leased from the Cobianco brothers. Housing close to the campus was difficult to find, and A.D. charged Simon and Taylor three-quarters of the rent. A.D. paid only one-quarter, although they were high school friends and college roommates.

“Doing business,” A.D. called it. “I’m going to be a businessman with an office, a big desk, a huge salary and a secretary with giant
chalugas
.”

A.D. overestimated executive joy and underestimated the Cobianco brothers. All financial transactions went through A.D. The good news was that neither Simon nor Taylor were listed or liable on the lease. The bad news was that A.D. was handling other people’s money.

“Football and doing business is all I know, Taylor. You see the guys they got running Houston? Idiots.” A.D. was outraged. “I’d be a hell of a general manager.”

“What worries me, A.D., is the possibility that you believe what you’re saying.”

Taylor watched the campus roll by, the treeline snaking behind the stadium and field house, marking the river that wound through the school. Orange bulldozers and earth movers were scattered across a giant slash covering Regents Hill, where another twenty-story dormitory was going up: Amos Chandler Hall.

“The campus has really grown since we came here.” Taylor frowned. “Dormitories.... Goddam, do I hate dormitories. They are full of people.”

A.D. was still bouncing on the seat and tapping a rhythm on the steering wheel with his fingers. He leaned over and turned on the radio. The Rolling Stones whined and moaned from the speakers.

          
I’ll be in my basement room

          
with a needle and a spoon

          
and another girl to

          
take my pain away.