The Franchise (68 page)

A.D. finally led the coach in to meet with the young widow. Red sat down in the low, cloth-covered chair across the desk from Suzy. He was looking up to her.

“Feel free to smoke,” she said, dismissing A.D. with manicured, fluttering fingers. The ex-defensive back shuffled out angrily.

“Mind if I chew?” Red took his pocketknife and cut a thumbsize chunk off a plug of tobacco he kept in a Baggie.

“Not if you don’t mind if I puke.”

“Puke away.” The coach popped the cud into his mouth. Chewing slowly, he watched Suzy with polite, passionless eyes.

“Well, as you know, since my husband’s death I have begun to take a more active interest in the Franchise.” Suzy smiled thinly. “The work will help keep me active and vital while mourning the loss of Cyrus. But I must also admit that for quite a while I have been thinking about certain changes in the structure of the club.”

Suzy reached to the small silver cigarette box on her desk and withdrew a long brown filter-tipped cigarette. Red made no move to light it; he just chewed and watched. The wad of tobacco swelled out the right side of his face.

Suzy lit the cigarette with a miniature revolver, the Texas Pistols official lighter. Inhaling deeply, letting the smoke slip out of her mouth and nose, she looked about to breathe fire.

“I’m thinking of replacing A.D. as general manager.” Suzy studied the whomper-jawed head coach, searching for a reaction. “Well? What do you think?”

“About replacing A.D. as general manager?” Red chewed slowly. He made certain to spit before, during and after he spoke. His lips were brown and runny, tobacco stuck between his teeth, juice sloshed around his mouth. Suzy choked back her gag reflex. Red spat again, then probed his mouth with his tongue, rearranging the chew—an extremely unattractive operation.

“Well ...” Red probed thoughtfully. Suzy held both her hands to her mouth and closed her eyes. Red watched her pretty Adam’s apple bobble. “A.D. ain’t worth a shit.” Red spat again. “But at least with A.D. we know what sort of an idiot we’re dealing with....”

Suzy kept her eyes squeezed shut and both hands clamped against her mouth. She continued nodding her head.

“But”—Red spat, purposely leaving residue on his lips—“if we get some new yo-yo in here, anything can happen.” Red licked the juice clean. “I don’t know of any good general-manager material around for hire, do you?”

Suzy shook her head violently. Red watched her and chewed slowly. Suzy opened her eyes and dropped her hands, then took several deep breaths.

“Well, now, Coach”—Suzy was wobbly but was gaining—“actually I was thinking about somebody from inside the Franchise. Somebody like you.”

Red grinned, showing his brown-stained teeth and mouth.

“I’ll want an ownership position as part of my contract,” Red demanded. “Say, five percent with options for five percent more?”

Suzy nodded, kept her eyes down and gulped great quantities of air, choking back the urge to vomit.

“What’s the kicker?” Red chewed slowly, swallowing some of the juice. “What do I have to do?”

Suzy again took deep breaths; she was in a nauseous sweat. Finally she could speak. “You make certain we lose or at least don’t win by more than the spread against Denver.”

“What spread?” Red chewed calmly, betraying no emotion. “The Vegas line or the one in the Sunday paper?”

“The spread.” Suzy belched. “You go by the biggest spread.”

“I have been around football for most of my life, and I have seen and done some really incredible stuff, but believe it or not, this ...” Red spat. “... this is the first time I have ever been asked to take a dive.”

“Well?
Will
you do it?”

“Do I end up as GM and head coach with five percent of the Franchise and an option for five percent more?”

“You got my word on it,” Suzy said. “We’ll draw up the papers and make the announcement right after the game.”

“I have your word on it?” Red asked again.

“May God strike me dead. What do you say?” Suzy stuck her small hand out. Red gripped it hard and grinned brown.

“I say we got a deal or God may strike you dead.” Red pumped Suzy’s delicate hand. “You got Red Kilroy’s word.”

Red went back to his office and sat, thinking about what had just transpired.

Red had always known Suzy would squeeze out A.D. sooner or later, but Red had never figured himself as the replacement. He was disturbed by her quick, almost desperate agreement to his demand for a percentage of ownership. Suzy Chandler knew that ownership was something that Red had wanted for years.

An owner. Not an employee but an
owner.

Red Kilroy ached with desire to accept Suzy Chandler’s offer, but of course the deal was worthless. Suzy’s word was no good. For that matter, neither was Red’s. The head coach decided to agree to Suzy’ s scheme because he knew that A.D.’ s efforts would switch from attempts to steal and to thwart Red’s Super Bowl game plan to A.D.’s own scramble for survival. Red was right. A.D. dropped out of sight quickly. Suzy emerged as the Franchise management. For the remainder of time left to prepare for the Super Bowl, Suzy paraded in front of the media and the team was left alone.

Red planned to win. To win
big.

He knew, compared to the handshake and word of an ex-roller-skating carhop, a chance to win a Super Bowl was money in the bank.

“H
OW MANY TICKETS
do we get? Total?” Don Cobianco was asking A.D. Koster. “I mean the
full total
.” They were riding around in the backseat of the black four-door Cadillac. In the usual way Roger Cobianco, the middle brother, was in the front passenger seat and Johnny, the youngest, was driving.

Johnny had lost his looks, along with his teeth and his brand-new Colt Commander, when Taylor hammered him with the .45 in A.D.’s office. Johnny’s young face was now permanently pale, scarred and sunken. The false teeth were mismatched with the real ones and showed gold at the gum line.

But more had happened to Johnny Cobianco than losing a four-hundred-dollar gun and some teeth. He had been truly scared for the first time. He hadn’t just lost, he’d quit. He had gotten whipped and realized his mortality with a terrifying, demoralizing clarity. It opened a tiny hole at his very center that never stopped growing until he was totally empty. Johnny C. had never felt so completely vulnerable, he had never lost so quickly and completely. He wondered if killing Taylor would blot out the constant dread that haunted him. His brothers thought he should take revenge, but Johnny refused to discuss it.

Johnny Cobianco was in a state of constant alarm, almost paralyzed by fear. It was killing him. His brothers saw his usual ebullient mood change to one of grim, sullen frowns, grunts and nods. The brothers noticed his skin color seemed bad, but if anyone had told Don and Roger Cobianco that their brother, Johnny, was being slowly scared to death, they wouldn’t have believed it.

“A.D., I asked you a question.” Don Cobianco’s voice was soft in the backseat. “What’s taking so long to figure? How many tickets do we control for the Super Bowl?”

“Including season ticket holders?” A.D. asked.

“Including everybody’s, even yours,” Don said. “Come on, give.”

“We can’t take
all
the season ticket holders’ tickets,” A.D. argued. “We’ve got some big corporate clients on that list.”

“If they’re big,” Don Cobianco said, “they’ll pay big. If they don’t want to pay big, they’re not the kind of customer you want for the Franchise. We want spenders. High rollers. There’s lots of stuff to sell at spectacle besides the spectacle. We want our share of all of it and we want the customer to pay the absolute highest price possible. Any other business technique would be un-American.” Don looked at the square, dark, curly-haired heads of his brothers. “So, A.D., I’m asking again. How many tickets?”

“Twenty-seven thousand, five hundred,” A.D. said.

“It’s a seventy-thousand-seat stadium,” Don Cobianco said. “We get at least half the seats. It’s our stadium
and
we’re one of the Super Bowl teams. It is
our
franchise. No. You tell the commissioner that we want thirty-five thousand seats minimum. Repeat: minimum. We have commitments.” The thick-set man turned and looked at A.D. “Make Robbie understand what seventy thousand drunk fans would do if we shut Clyde, Texas, and the Pistol Dome down on Super Sunday. It wouldn’t be super, believe it. You explain or I’ll go see the commissioner and explain myself.”

“I’ll do it,” A.D. said. “Robbie told me that I should carry on all contact with you. Since McNamara did the newspaper series on the League and the Mob, Robbie thinks a little distance wouldn’t hurt deniability.”

“No. It sure wouldn’t hurt deniability.” Don Cobianco grinned. “Tell him thirty-seven thousand, five hundred, and settle for no less than thirty-five thousand. You tell him that comes from me. If he has to give up some of his tickets, I still want thirty-five thousand bottom. Otherwise we’ll come to his office and get them.”

Stop here, Johnny. We’ll let Mr. Big Shot Pistols General Manager off three blocks of deniability away from his office. The walk will do him good.” The car stopped and A.D. got out. They drove away.

A.D. stood for a moment, taking off his tailor-made silk suit jacket and loosening his tie, tossing the jacket over his shoulder. He began walking slowly toward the offices.

He had lied to Don Cobianco. The Pistols’ share was thirty thousand, but A.D. had held out a few for himself. He had plans for two thousand tickets between the forties. Kimball Adams would give him $540 apiece for them and then make them part of a Super Bowl travel package from Las Vegas, New York or L.A.

A.D. planned to walk with a million in cash, tax-free.

Now he had to find an additional five thousand tickets for the Cobiancos. The commissioner would have to supply them, A.D. decided. Robbie Burden would have to take them from someone else.

The season ticket holders will go crazy,
A.D. thought as he walked. The fans had just gotten settled down after the Franchise forced them to finance the Pistol Dome. And now their Super Bowl tickets were going to be scalped.

A.D. was worried; they had promised Super Bowl tickets to season ticket holders. There were going to be heavy negative vibes on this one. It was going to take real public relations.

A.D. walked in the warm January lexas sun. The heat penetrated his already sweat-soaked suit. In the heat of that afternoon moment A.D. decided that it was time for a new League rule absolving the Pistols Franchise of any blame on the distribution of tickets that would be done in the commissioner’s office by a secret process. A.D. figured the people would buy it if the press would. The press would buy it if the commissioner stuck to the story. A.D.’s step became quicker, springy. A.D. had solved a problem and it made him feel good.

By the time he reached the Pistols offices, A.D. Koster had completely forgotten that solving the problem merely broke him even with the Cobianco brothers.

It was not until the middle of that night that A.D. sat straight up in Monique’s bed and fully realized that the Cobianco brothers were taking
his million dollars.

They would continue.

Soon they would take everything, as Don Cobianco had just done with the Super Bowl tickets.

“They want it
all
?” is what Suzy asked when A.D. told her the ticket demands. Robbie Burden said the same. Nearly. The commissioner had been expecting between six and nine million dollars.

“They’ll ruin the game,” Burden said.

“They’re ruining it for me already,” Suzy cried. “If we give in this time, they’ll want more the next. I can’t pay them back if they keep stealing my money.”

“They were hoping we wouldn’t notice right away,” A.D. said.

“Well, I’m noticing,” Suzy said. “They got to come way down.”

“Absolutely,” the commissioner agreed.

“And you have to give up some of your tickets,” Suzy said to Burden. “These guys are friends of yours too. Maybe better friends? Maybe
you
are in with them? How do I know?”

“Now just a second ...” the commissioner started to protest.

“Look,” Suzy cut him off, “we have to stick together on this—
unless
you are in with the brothers. If that’s the case, I think your secret Bahamian bank account can be proved. I believe they give jail terms for tax evasion, Robbie. The person who turns you in gets ten percent. We can’t afford to have people like A.D. in desperate straits where they are liable to do something that drastic.”

“I was needing that million. I got debts.” A.D. looked hangdog. “Commissioner, you’re going to have to give us some of your tickets.”

“Wrong.” Robbie Burden watched Suzy file her long nails. “How do I know that
you two
aren’t in on this with the Cobiancos?”

“You don’t.” Suzy lit a brown cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke through her nose and mouth. Finally she looked right at the commissioner.

Burden rubbed his chin. “I could cut some allotments, then use Kimball Adams to scalp the tickets back to the same people. They’ll
still
get tickets; it’ll just cost them more in the secondary market. That’ll free up other tickets that I had earmarked for the secondary market.” The commissioner smiled. “Kimball sure has come in handy over the years.”

“When you were a general manager, you always had a great eye for talent, Robbie.” A.D. smiled. “I thought your trade of thirteen players for a guy with a broken leg was genius.”

A.D. cut his own throat by humiliating the commissioner. Right then and there Robbie Burden decided A.D. Koster no longer served a purpose worth one Super Bowl ticket.

After the meeting with Robbie Burden, Suzy knew she needed money even more than she needed it before. So she called Red Kilroy into her office. “How’s your coaching strategy coming along?” she asked pointedly.

“Super Bowls come every year, but the chance to own part of a franchise is once in a lifetime,” Red said.

“It will be our secret until after the game.” Relieved, Suzy again shook hands with Red, sealing their bargain. Then she passed the word to Donald Cobianco.