The Franchise (78 page)

Wendy arranged for off-shore crew helicopters from Chandler Well Services. The Pistols got a civilian pilot who was a Baptist deacon with a wife and five kids. Denver got a twice-divorced ex-MEDEVAC pilot who had three tours in Vietnam and was still carrying shrapnel in his back. He loved to fly under power lines and bridges. His hangover was killing him but he promised to deliver. Wendy told him to be certain he gave the Denver players a demonstration.

The choppers brought the teams. The ex-MEDEVAC pilot had so enjoyed the Denver players’ screams when he dove under the Chalk Mountain Overpass that he couldn’t resist a little joke at the end. Hovering at about fifteen hundred feet, checking the markings on the makeshift landing pad, he suddenly cut the motors. The giant helicopter dropped like a stone, as he screamed. “We’re all gonna die!”

Then he back-rotored the big chopper and gently delivered the Denver team—safe if not completely sound.

T
HE GAME WAS THE
easy part, as Taylor had imagined and Red had planned.

Everybody knew their steps and angles.

Only Texas’s young offensive linemen made any mistakes, failing to pick up a couple of pass-rush stunts. But Speedo and Danny Lewis made uncanny route adjustments and caught balls thrown early under pressure, while Amos Burns and Ox Wood often blocked two pass rushers at once, knocking them into each other like billiard balls.

Denver sprung no big surprises, and the Pistols’ defense did not give up a first down until the second half.

Red Kilroy’s game plan had been well thought out. It was basic, solid and well constructed, depending on execution and superior personnel plus tricks and brand-new wrinkles. The Pistols were the better team and continued doing what they had done best all year. Plus,
they gambled.
From the Pistols’ opening onside kickoff, which they successfully recovered, Texas pulled trick plays. Taylor gambled all day. Favored by sixteen points, he had to gamble or die.

Taylor read coverage quickly and correctly, his teammates did the same and together they made the necessary adjustments, continually confounding Denver’s defense.

“We’ve got the half step on them,” Speedo Smith said early in the game. “I can feel it. I can hear their brains clankin’. They’re already guessing.”

“There is no man in football can outguess me,” Taylor said, “ ’cause I just change my mind on the spot. Speedo, I’ll want overdrive.” The quarterback asked, “Can you give me some?”

“I got whatever you need. I’m held back only by your lack of faith. You name it, I can do it.”

Taylor hit Speedo on a first-down fly route. The cornerman guessed wrong and stopped dead at twelve yards, expecting a breaking route. Speedo flashed by him and the back was so shocked, he just stood there watching the play go for seventy-six yards. The ball was in the air less than twenty-five. Taylor let it go as soon as he saw the cornerback set up, expecting a break. The ball was less than ten yards away, coming down on the money, when Speedo looked. He grabbed it and ran with an easy grace and speed that had never been seen in professional football before and would probably never be seen again.

Taylor stood in the pocket and watched in awe long after he had released the ball.

Speedo’s next touchdown was spectacular, but only Taylor understood his receiver’s astounding athletic skill. Speedo beat a double coverage and broke open up the middle, running straight away with two backs in pursuit. The free safety was dropping straight and deep and Taylor put too much on the throw, making certain the free safety didn’t get to the ball. Taylor knew he had overthrown badly. He was starting to cuss himself when suddenly Speedo put his stride into the overdrive Taylor had never seen before the Washington game.

Overtaking the ball, leaving the defenders in the dust, as promised, Speedo had done the impossible.

To everyone but Taylor Rusk the play seemed perfectly timed.

Taylor found Speedo on the bench, heaving oxygen into his lungs, his face twisted in pain.

“You okay?” the quarterback asked.

Speedo nodded, his chest heaving, rolling his head back in agony. He could not speak yet.

“What’s the matter?” Taylor began to look for a trainer, certain that his best receiver was injured. Speedo grabbed his arm with small, strong hands and held Taylor there on the bench while he continued to gasp and writhe in pain. Finally he began to breathe easier and released his grip.

“You all right, Speedo?”

“Sure, man,” he gasped, “it just
hurts
to run
that fast.
”

“That was faster than Washington. I figured I had overthrown by twenty yards.”

“You did.” He pointed at his powerful legs. “These babies don’t lie.”

“I am the only person in this stadium that knows it was impossible to run under that ball.” Taylor shook his head. “Nobody is that fast.”

“You
can’t
overthrow me.”

“I’ve overthrown you lots of times.”

“Not today, turkey.” Speedo’s breathing eased, but pain still creased his face. “Not today ... so put it up as far as you can and relax”—Speedo closed his mouth; his nostrils flared to allow more air to his lungs—“ ’cause you’re throwing to The Fastest Nigger Ever!”

Speedo Smith’s third touchdown reception came on a third and four quick out. As Taylor took the snap, the outside linebacker turned and ran straight for Speedo. The halfback laid off, depending on the linebacker for the short route. The weak safety started moving up to take the short inside. It was a peculiar defense, but instead of coming off to an alternate, Taylor just dropped the ball over the linebacker to Speedo up against the sideline.

The quarterback would have been satisfied with the five yards and a first down. They had Speedo tripled against the sideline, surrounded with no place to go. But instead of just stepping out of bounds, Speedo ran straight back at the linebacker, who made the mistake of trying to tear the small receiver apart instead of just grabbing him. Speedo ducked, cut upfield past the weak safety in the same movement and was running free.

“We got the half step,” he yelled back at the Denver defense strung out behind him.

Taylor threw eight touchdown passes in that Super Bowl, a record almost certain never to be broken.

He threw five to Speedo Smith, one to Screaming Danny Lewis and two more to his backs.

Taylor gambled constantly. The fourth touchdown pass to Speedo came on a third and one on Texas’s twelve-yard line. A dive fake to Amos Burns and a naked bootleg gave Speedo time to get behind everybody for an eighty-eight-yard TD. Speedo’s fifth touchdown came on the first play after middle linebacker Margene Brinkley had knocked a Denver back loose from the ball, recovering it on the Pistols’ two. Taylor then caught Denver blitzing and flipped the ball to the hole in the short secondary where Speedo’s sting adjustment would put him. Speedo wasn’t there yet, but Taylor knew he would be, and the blitzing Denver linebacker was grabbing the quarterback already. Taylor never saw what happened, the Denver defense buried him. Speedo scored, he could hear it.

Red Kilroy outcoached Denver in every stage of pregame preparation. During the game Red, of course, lost his mind and spent four quarters looking for it. He ranted and raved on the sidelines, suggesting plays years removed from the playbook. He even called out defenses from college.

All day long he called Ox Wood “my man Bluto” and twice he called for Bobby Hendrix to get in the game and “run some short stuff across the middle—make those linebackers stay loose.”

As usual, nobody listened.

I
T BECAME PAINFULLY
apparent early in the game that Red Kilroy’s promise to Suzy Chandler and A.D. Koster to throw the Super Bowl game was as ephemeral as the promises he made recruiting eighteen-year-old blue chippers for the University.

Suzy and A.D. had been fed bad dope.

The promise of five percent of the Franchise failed to sway Red, and by halftime the Pistols had a thirty-six to seven lead. Denver would never get closer.

The Pistols’ game plan that Red had passed through Suzy and A.D. to the Denver coach was fraudulent. It only confused Denver’s preparation and confounded them during the game.

By the middle of the second quarter Don Cobianco was convinced he had been betrayed. By whom he did not know yet.

It was a fix, Cobianco was certain. He was partially right.

He never saw the magic. Nobody does, except the magicians.

As the game progressed he was more and more certain that Dick Conly was involved. When Conly had placed his huge bets, Cobianco had laughed to himself and made jokes to his brothers about the senile old fart who had been outsmarted by a carhop. Don was happy to book the enormous bet.

“No fool like an old fool.”

R.D. Locke, the Denver cornerback, fell down on a simple set-backfield up route and Danny Lewis had six points. Then, on third and goal from the five, Locke was called for interference, bumping Amos Burns in the end zone with the ball in the air.

After Denver’s first score there was a late flag and the score was nullified. Denver’s right guard was called for holding. Later the films showed Denver’s right guard was the only man in the line who
wasn’t
holding. Denver cut him the next year anyway, explaining that his early penalty was the turning point of the game.

The official picked up his flag and stuffed it into his hip pocket. He loved football. In high school they were winners. District champs. He had played running back for an unknown coach named Kilroy.

Red Kilroy had co-conspirators everywhere; he’d spent years placing them. Red and Dick Conly understood the game: build a winning system, infiltrate the entire game, dictate the rules, the regulations, the winners, the losers and the television schedules; fine-tune the show, the team, the circus, the spectacle, the organization, the system. Control the delivery
and
the content.

Starting the second half, the Denver quarterback threw three interceptions in a row, and by game’s end had tossed five. Two were on purpose. The old fool Dick Conly had protected his bet by purchasing $200,000 worth of the quarterback’s markers from an Atlantic City casino. Conly paid fifty cents on the dollar and Denver’s quarterback came as a bonus. Conly got one more bonus. The Man from New Orleans made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. The Man would, for twenty-five percent, make certain the Cobianco brothers paid Dick Conly his winnings.

Cutting up money. And people.

Word of the Denver quarterback’s problem had come to Dick Conly from J. Edgar Jones, Investico’s ex-agent and professional snitch. Gathering information and misinforming the players about drugs and gamblers, J. Edgar spent off-seasons dealing the privileged intelligence to the high bidder. Actuely aware of the value and power of information, he traded it constantly without restraint or concern. All it cost him in the end was his kneecap and his job. He was one of the lucky ones.

By the close of the third quarter, Donald Cobianco realized the enormity of the fix. Dick Conly was still a man to fear. Donald C. learned the lesson too late: Dick Conly would always be a man to fear.

The Denver quarterback threw his fourth interception—this one an accident. On the first play of Pistols’ possession, Taylor Rusk hit Amos Burns sneaking down the sideline for a touchdown.

It was play action. Speedo Smith, in motion, faked an end around. Amos dived into the line, losing himself in the tangle of bodies, then snuck out to the area just vacated by the Denver backs chasing Speedo and screaming, “Reverse! Reverse!”

Taylor took the snap, faked Amos into the line, held the ball against his stomach, faked the pitch to Speedo racing deep through the backfield, then drifted slowly away from the line, his back to the action. The play was timing and counting steps. Taylor never looked downfield until he threw the ball. Planting his right foot on his fifth step, Taylor turned, found Amos where he expected and threw the ball. Burns never broke stride. The ball spiraled down, landing light as a feather with the laces up.

Donald Cobianco fell back in his luxury-box chair and began to gag and choke in fury. “Goddam nigger!” were the only words he could get out. His face turned bright red.

“Well, that’s it,” he said finally, after choking and coughing. He mopped the sweat off his forehead, face and neck. “What the fuck else could possibly go wrong?” Mr. C. was not expecting an answer.

Roger Cobianco reluctantly put down the telephone installed next to his chair. “Kimball Adams disappeared with our share of the Super Bowl excursion money. He didn’t catch his flight out of New York. He never checked into his hotel room and he was due here before the half.”

“Goddam! Motherfucking cocksucking jockstrap assholes!”
The elder brother turned completely purple. His screaming could be heard clear across the Pistol Dome.

“It could be he got caught in that god-awful traffic,” Johnny tried to placate his brother. He was terrified by his rage.

“The traffic jam don’t go all the way to New York,” Roger said quietly, warning his brother with his eyes to just shut up and sit still. Big brother was in a killing rage.

Tiny Walton sat at a back table and played double solitaire.

“He had six thousand tickets plus our split on the hotel rooms we block-booked.” Don turned from purple to white, looking suddenly exhausted and old. He knew he had to regain control. His situation was deteriorating with every second and he needed to be alert. “Almost four million dollars.”

“We’ll find him, Don,” Roger said.

Tiny Walton smiled his mean little smile. He loved to see big operators get outsmarted, played for the fool. A sucker in a handmade suit. Soon they would have to ask him to solve their problem. All their big-time schemes and dreams reduced to nothing, ashes and smoke. Then Tiny would be asked to do a favor.
Man’s work, bloody business.
All the rest was as phony as the Pistol turf. They should have let him kill Taylor Rusk in the first place, but they had been scared that all the “suckers” would quit betting on the Pistols with the Franchise blown in half. They should have been so lucky.