The Franchise (81 page)

And that led them toward Lamar.

After the game kickoff Lamar moved the card table to the back, just beneath the awning that shaded the entire side of the van.

Facing the Insiders’ lot exit, he put a green and white webbed lawn chair by the table. He picked up the purple duffel bag with the cheap silkscreen on the side and stepped inside the Winnebago. Sitting in the booth, which folded down into an exceptionally uncomfortable bed, he placed the bag on a red table. Outside, people continued to arrive, walking from cars long abandoned.

Opening the bag, Lamar removed the surgical gloves, pulled them on, then checked the contents he had so carefully prepared earlier at Taylor’s apartment.

The Super Bowl ticket from Tiny Walton lay elegantly oversize on top. The ducat was beautifully printed in four colors with the section row and seat numbers on the bottom. A schematic line drawing of the stadium was printed on the reverse side. Lamar turned the ticket over in his hands, cherishing the feel of it, studying the design, remembering all that it would have meant to him all those years ago when he first became a Texas season ticket holder. One of the very first and very few. The heavy coated paper made the colors shine, and Lamar considered the ticket a minor work of art.

“I’ll be damned,” he said softly when he checked the numbers at the bottom against the schematic on the back. “Fifty-yard-line seats. Fifty-goddam-yard-line seats for a cheap thug killer.”

Removing the gin bottles filled with the fifty-fifty mix of kerosene and gasoline, he carefully unwrapped the stolen toweling. He tore the towel into strips, which he would use as wicks for the Molotov cocktails in the gin bottles.

Then he lifted out the rubber sleeves filled with the homemade napalm. Using gaffer’s tape, he attached to the inner tubing the homemade fuses of gun and aluminum powder. Beneath each of these homemade fire packets Lamar slipped a cherry bomb, fastening it with tape so that the bomb would explode
after
the homemade fuse had ignited the gelatinous mixture of soap paste, gasoline and kerosene, hopefully blowing the burning gel over a wider area—about the size of a stretch limousine.

Rummaging through the drawers, he found several T-shirts, which he tied off at the neck and sleeves, putting one bomb in each with the fuse exposed through a small hole punched in each shirt.

He kept one tube of napalm separate with no fuse.

He checked his pistol and the speed loaders, then checked the small .22 rifle.

The railroad flares were his final backup in case none of his homemade fuses or wicks worked and the timing was off on the cherry bombs.

Near the end of the third quarter Lamar refilled his bag and stepped out of the van, walked back to the card table and placed the heavy bag beside the green and white webbed chair.

He sat and studied the grade at the Insiders’ lot exit; it had a slight downslope toward the dome wall, which meant if he failed to hit the target with his Molotov cocktails, he should try and throw short, allowing the flaming liquid to flow down under the car. Then he took the single unfused sleeve of homemade napalm and walked over to the gate, laying it against the fence. The black rubber blended perfectly into the asphalt.

Back at the table, while he waited and watched the elevator door, he taped the Super Bowl ticket to one of the gin bottles. It seemed like the best way to return it to Tiny.

Lamar was startled by a couple of false alarms as the end of the game drew near and people began to exit the elevator that fed into the Insiders’ lot.

When the Cobianco brothers and Tiny did step out into the gathering night, Lamar Jean Lukas was calm and ready to perform. He remained remarkably collected as he set out the contents of the bag and prepared for Tiny and the Cobianco brothers’ limousine to try to get out of the Insiders’ lot.

He lit a long cigar and puffed up a large red coal at the end. Then he lay his lighter on the table and checked the wicks in the gin bottles to make certain they were soaked. The T-shirts were stacked on the table, next to his pistol, the speed loaders, the railroad flares and the small .22 rifle. He still wore the surgical gloves.

Except for the red spot of the glowing cigar, he was completely hidden in the shadows of the awning.

He checked the area once more for people who might accidentally wander into the firefight and had the small firecrackers ready to toss at them to drive them off. There was no one around as the limousine’s lights came on, and it wheeled out of its parking place up to the gate.

Lamar picked up the small rifle and drew a bead on the driver as he approached the automatic gate opener. His window hummed down and he shoved the car into park. When he leaned out to push the plastic card into the small orange box, Lamar squeezed off two shots, hitting him below the left eye, scattering lead fragments through his sinuses and prefrontal lobe.

The small pops were lost in the sounds inside and outside the car. The driver jumped slightly, dropped the card and sat back in his seat. Johnny C., sitting beside him, never noticed; he was looking and listening to the discussion in the back.

Lamar drew a bead on the rubber tube of jellied kerosene and gasoline, blowing holes in it with the small .22 rounds. The gel began running slowly down the slope. He lay down the rifle and picked up his lighter and one gin bottle. He lit the wick and tossed it underhand at the car. The bottle sailed through the air, bounced off the leather top of the limo and failed to break, rolling onto the trunk and catching in the bumper. The wick came loose and went out. Lamar quickly grabbed the second bottle and flicked the lighter without success, getting only sparks.

Nobody in the car saw the first Molotov cocktail, but they heard something bump the roof. When Johnny looked around, he saw the blood running down the driver’s face.

“Son of a bitch! Donny,” he cried, “look at Mort.”

Lamar finally got the second wick lit and tossed the bottle hard at the limousine, overthrowing and hitting the wall on the far side, turning it into a sheet of flame. It wasn’t what he wanted, but the backlight from the flames outlined the occupants of the car clearly.

Johnny tried his door several times in panic before giving up and trying to crawl out the window over the dead driver.

Lamar picked up a T-shirt and touched the exposed fuse to his cigar. It ignited, hissing and sputtering. He tossed it high, hoping the attached firecracker would explode in the air; it didn’t, and the napalm-filled tube bounced harmlessly off the hood. He lit and tossed a second before Johnny could complete his attempt to crawl out the window. It, too, failed to explode. Lamar reached down on the table for his combat .357, squeezing off one shot, hitting Johnny directly in the crown of his head and knocking him back into the passenger seat. Lamar grabbed and lit a third homemade bomb, tossing it just as the rear passenger door opened and Tiny dived out, carrying one of the alligator attache cases filled with A.D.’s money.

The gel-filled rubber tube bounced off the fat man’s back directly into Donald Cobianco’s lap, where it exploded, blowing flaming gelatin all over the inside of the car.

Momentarily the other bombs began exploding and the car was engulfed in flames, and Lamar watched the two brothers in the backseat screaming and flailing around hopelessly.

It always amazed Lamar how long it took to burn to death.

He pitched his remaining napalm and the railroad flares into the inferno, calmly puffing his cigar, watching Tiny scramble away with the bag in one hand, the other digging in his belt for his pistol. Tiny had his pistol out and was heading straight for the van, raising the gun, moving fast for a fat man. Lamar chewed his cigar and thought about the Captain. He got killed the night they were overrun in the highlands. That night, too, there had been gunshots and explosions, fire and screams, terrifying and glorious.

“All the heroes are dead,” he told Lamar the day he joined the outfit. “I need live soldiers and all the heroes are dead.” The Captain said that and then went right on ahead and got himself killed, trying to pull two guys out of a burning MEDEVAC chopper. They were
his
men.

The whine of lead cut through the air fairly near Lamar Jean’s head. The big fat guy was getting closer, firing his automatic pistol and carrying a satchel.

Everything began to slow down as Lamar concentrated on killing Tiny Walton. The napalm explosions no longer sounded, they were just hot winds blowing. Lamar let the fat man get close, he puffed his cigar and stayed calm. He had been in lots of these firefights. How many times you fired your weapon was meaningless; what counted was how often you hit your target.

He heard the deadly song of lead as he waited on the fat man, who was tiring, his shots increasingly wild, off the mark.

Everything began turning red, as it did in those firefights in the war, and then, as the fat man, gasping air, carrying the satchel and shooting, reached the point Lamar had chosen, Lamar pointed the heavy pistol and fired three quick rounds, placing the slugs within a 3-inch circle centered on the bridge of Tiny’s nose.

After that the blackness roiled over Lamar Jean, as usual.

W
HEN
T
AYLOR FINALLY
returned to the locker room, it was almost empty. The game had been over more than two hours. The last of the television equipment was being hauled out. The two young boys were picking up old tape and jockstraps and socks before sweeping the carpet.

“Where you been, man?” Speedo Smith was checking himself in the mirror one more time. A thin film of sweat covered his smooth black forehead. “They was all looking for you to show your dick on television. I showed them mine instead.”

“I was hiding in Red’s whorehouse.” Taylor sat in front of his locker and tossed all the gear he carried. “I am not
ever
wearing that shit again.”

“Yeah. Everybody says that in January, but then when the eagle don’t shit and April fifteenth comes round, they all come back.” Speedo took a towel and blotted his face. “Everybody must have been off fucking. A.D. and Suzy Chandler didn’t show up for the presentation. The commissioner gave the trophy to Red.”

“I’ll bet Red loved that.” Taylor felt calm and relaxed, drained but buoyant. “Did he recite the Gettysburg Address as his thank-you and acceptance speech?”

“No. He just gol’danged and gee-whizzed his way through.” Speedo laughed. “He kept calling Commissioner Burden ‘Commissioner Gordon.’ ”

“Batman’s
Commissioner Gordon?” Taylor was too tired to smile.

“You got it,” Speedo cackled. “The commissioner didn’t like it. Ol’ Robbie Burden was white as a sheet and shaking like a leaf. The man will have to get better to die.”

Taylor stared into the bottom of his spacious, perfectly engineered locker filled with free shoes. Each day Jack the Equipment Man stacked his twelve pairs of different brands and colors. The shoe companies paid Jack to do it.

“Speedo, do you remember the mouse that lived in my locker that first year in Colony Stadium? He ate my chin strap, the earpieces and webbing inside my headgear. The mouse had a good life, ate good and got to hang around with pro football stars.”

“It’s too bad he couldn’t be here today,” Speedo mocked, “but he missed the bus.”

“The mouse couldn’t live here.” Taylor was listening to the sound of the showers and smelling the antiseptic. “Too clean, neat, orderly ...”

“Right, man, right,” Speedo said. “We should have voted him a share ... taken his ring size ... a share along with D’Hanis and Hendrix.”

Taylor nodded.

“Well, leader turkey, I gave it to you, the best game forever. No receiver will ever be as good as I was today, and only you know it.” Speedo shook his head.

“No one else would believe it,” Taylor sighed. “Thanks, Speedo ... for everything.”

Speedo pressed a dry towel to his face once more, checked himself in the full length mirror. The sign above the mirror said:

REMEMBER, THE GUY LOOKING AT YOU REPRESENTS THE PURPLE AND WHITE

PHILOSOPHY.

LOOK LIKE A TEXAS PISTOL.

BE PROUD.

“The purple and white philosophy,” Taylor said. “How do you look like a Texas Pistol?”

“You do white,” Speedo said, “I’ll do purple.” He walked out the door. The door sign said:

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN ANYTHING? ZIP YOUR FLY.

Ox Wood came limping out of the training room, where he had spent over an hour with his knees packed in ice to keep down swelling. He did it after every game and most practices. The ancient body was worn out.

“You the last one in the training room?” Taylor watched him in the mirror by the exit door.

Ox nodded. “First one in, last one out. Where were you?”

“In Red’s hideout, jacking myself off.”

“I don’t blame you. It was a circus here.” He was still sweating and breathing hard. His face looked tired; dark half-moons lay beneath his eyes.

“You were great, Ox, you know that?” Taylor began recalling bits and pieces of what he had seen Ox do that day. “You always kept them out long enough. Without you and Amos picking up the slack for the young guys, it would have been a long day. That one touchdown of Speedo’s had to take five seconds to get off. That’s a long time. I saw you grab a lot of slack today. You played the whole game.”

“First time this year. But it isn’t as tough to pass-block, since the defense can’t handslap and it’s legal to hold. They still knocked you around today. I don’t understand it. Those young kids are faster, smarter and stronger than me, but they lost their men. You got hit!”

“Not until too late. They kept them off me long enough, that’s all that matters.”

“That’s all
they think
matters,” Ox said. “But you know it’s not. It’s like they’re doing a job, not protecting the quarterback. There’s a difference—a big difference.”

“They’re young—” Taylor said.

“But they act old,” Ox interrupted. “They don’t understand about duty, loyalty, pride, teammates.... They’re your teammates and they let you get hit. In the Old League you would have some holes in you, but because we win big, these young guys think they played good enough. One good shot in the Old League and you would be just a memory.”