Paydirt, Page 3

  "Kind of ironic, isn't it?" Walters asked. "You lock up your players in a hotel to keep them out of trouble, and look what happens. Hey Bobby, you don't need coaches, you need jailers."

  Walters wanted to know if Bobby would surrender his client in the morning for a quiet booking and immediate bond hearing, avoiding the media circus. Nightlife would be on the street within ninety minutes. The wheels of justice are well greased for the rich and famous.

  "Yeah, I'll have him there," Bobby said. "And thanks, Larry."

  "Don't mention it. By the way, I'll expect four playoff tickets by hand delivery."

  Bobby hung up and slipped down to the first row. Crouching next to Kingsley, Bobby was a humble supplicant, whispering the bad news. Kingsley reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of hundred dollar bills in a silver and turquoise money clip.

  "Take care of it with the woman," Kingsley said. "Let her know there's more where that came from. Get a final number from her and do the paperwork tonight. You'll want her signature on a release before some contingent fee shyster gets to her."

  Bobby looked up at Kingsley from his catcher's crouch. Now was his chance. If ever he were going to stand up to the man, this was it. But then, hadn't he just promised to play it safe? Didn't he owe it to Christine and Scott? Waves of conflicting emotions tore at him, and he reached one inescapable conclusion: he lacked the balls to do what was right..

  "You know the drill, don't you, Robert?" Kingsley asked.

  "Know it? Hell, Martin, I invented it."

  — 6 Bagman

  Bobby drove to the hospital with Kingsley's wad of cash bulging uncomfortably in his pocket. He felt disembodied, numbed, as if under an anaesthetic.

  I'm to blame for this. I'm the one who got Nightlife off the first time.

  Was this his penance? Was a wrathful God bringing him here to lance the boils that festered on his conscience? He felt weak, as if his spine were made of leaves, wet and mushy from the rain. He tried to rationalize.

  It's my job, dammit! If it weren't me, it would be someone else.

  His thoughts turned to his boss. What was Kingsley thinking now? Surely not about the woman sedated in a hospital room. No, only whether the Mustangs hang tough for another win. Back-slapping along the sidelines as the last seconds tick away, then some quips for the sportswriters.

  The nurse's station was deserted, the staff huddled at the end of the corridor in the visitors' TV room. Bobby heard the familiar background noise of the football game. IV's and bedpans could wait; the Mustangs were on the tube.

  Bobby could feel his pulse quicken as he let himself into Janet Petty's room. She seemed to be asleep. Her eyes were nearly swollen shut, and a spot of dried blood stained a bandage at the corner of her mouth. An African-American woman in her early twenties, she probably was attractive when her face wasn't swollen from a beating.

  Bobby's legs felt heavy as logs, and his breathing became so labored, he worried his exhalations would wake her. Looking at her, battered and bruised, his heart thundered in his ears, as if beating itself to death in some rocky cavern.

  "Are you a doctor?" Janet Petty asked through parched lips. Her eyes had opened, tiny slits in the swollen flesh. "Because if you are, I'd just as soon have one who's not wearing a Mustangs shirt."

  "I'm the lawyer for the team," Bobby said, taking on the role he despised.

  Her laugh was a parched and humorless cough. "The D.A. said you might come around. I'm not gonna sign anything, so you can just go talk to my lawyer."

  I have a job to do, so do it!

  "I'm not here to get you sign anything," he said. "The team management simply wishes to assist you in your current situation."

  "I don't have a situation! I've been beaten and raped."

  Bobby reached into his pocket and withdrew the wad of hundreds, crisp as fresh kindling. Surely, somewhere on the planet, he told himself, was someone who was sleazier, scummier, more reprehensible than his own miserable self.

  "Isn't that what lawyers do, Bobby? Make excuses, settle cases, get people off?"

  Maybe it is, Chrissy, but once I pictured myself as Atticus Finch, standing tall for justice…and look at me now.

  He started peeling off the bills, letting her see Ben Franklin's picture, trying to whet her appetite.

  "The D.A. told me not take any money from you," she said.

  "No obligation," Bobby told her. "We just thought you could use some spare cash for babysitters, food, doctors' bills. Then, when you're feeling better, we could bring some paperwork by."

  Jesus Christ, how did I sink to this?

  "No way," she said. "You talk to my lawyer. He'll be by later."

  "Lawyers," Bobby said, rolling his eyes. "I hate to say it, but sometimes my brethren just slow things down, muck things up."

  "I'm in no hurry," she said, shifting her position on the pillow, wincing with pain.

  Beaten but proud, refusing to be buffaloed by the fistful of hundreds. "The D.A. told me he'd done it before."

  "What?"

  "Nightlife. That he raped another girl, but that it never got into the papers. Had I known, I never would have gone up to his room."

  Bobby started to say something about everyone being innocent until proven guilty, but he bit off the words like a strand of thread.

  "Did you know about it?" she asked.

  Bobby sucked in a breath but stayed quiet, his own silence bearing down on him like a tombstone.

  "Of course you did." She propped herself on an elbow, grimaced as if someone had just lodged a dagger between her ribs, then sized him up. "You're his lawyer. You're probably the one who hushed it up, aren't you?"

  "I…" He wanted to say he was only doing his job, but it sounded so pathetic, he swallowed the thought.

  What kind of a job was that? What kind of a man am I?

  "How do you sleep at night?" Her swollen eyes filled with tears. "What do you see when you look in the mirror?"

  Engulfed in misery, he put the money back in his pocket. "I want to help you. I really do. Forget who I am, or what I came here to do. If there's anything I can do to help…"

  "Put your client behind bars."

  He wanted to tell her it didn't work that way. The system, you know.

  "I can't." Feeling empty.

  Janet Petty turned her head toward the wall and spoke so softly Bobby could barely make out the words. "After they gave me the sedatives last night, I dreamed about that animal. He was biting me and clawing me, dragging me down and soiling me…"

  "I'm sorry," Bobby said, his voice dry as burned paper. "I am so very sorry." His pity extended to both of them. He stepped closer to the bed and reached out for her arm, but when he touched her clammy skin, she recoiled and screamed.

  "Get out! Get out of my room!"

  She frantically reached for the buzzer, her face twisted in pain, and Bobby fled, fighting back tears of his own.

  — 7 A Gutless, Spineless, Soft-Bellied Shyster

  Bobby wound his way through the bowels of the stadium, working his way toward the locker room where a cacophony of sounds echoed off the walls. The game had ended half an hour earlier, a Dallas victory, as if that mattered in the grand cosmic scheme.

  Reporters circled players, jamming microphones into their faces, pleading for grunted tidbits of wisdom. The floor was slick with sweat and shower spray, littered with soggy towels and wads of tape. Filthy uniforms were flung into laundry carts. An occasional victory whoop was heard, as the players celebrated defeating Washington, their long-time rivals.

  Bobby waited until the reporters edged away from Nightlife, having asked the same question a dozen different ways. Bobby was constantly amazed at how complicated the sports writers tried to make a game that was essentially blocking and tackling, throwing and catching.

  "Hey, whas-up, 'Meanor?" Nightlife asked him. The nickname, "Misdemeanor," which always bothered Bobby, infuriated him now. A former defensive back had coined it after Bobby convinced a judg
e to reduce an attempted murder charge to simple assault.

  "We have to talk," Bobby said.

  "Talk's cheap, but Nightlife ain't."

  Nightlife looked at Bobby with innocent, doe-like dark eyes. He had a child's face and a slightly buck-toothed smile that only made him seem even more boyish and guileless. Bobby considered him a narcissist and pathological liar.

  "Hey man, you're not still pissed about your old lady, are you? Wasn't my fault." He was naked except for a white towel wrapped around his midsection. He was shorter than Bobby, one of those quicksilver wide receivers with explosive strength and Olympic speed, a gazelle who darts across the middle unafraid of being crushed by ornery linebackers who outweigh him by fifty pounds. If not for his highly developed pecs and trapezoids that seemed to connect his shoulders directly to his head without need of a neck, Nightlife would have resembled a teenage camper headed for the bunkhouse showers.

  "That's not it," Bobby said, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him toward an adjacent room where the offensive unit held its meetings. The room resembled a lecture hall with writing-desk chairs, a raised stage and a blackboard covered with "x's" and "o's."

  "I'm here about Janet Petty."

  "Never heard of her. She want an autograph?"

  "She says you already tattooed her."

  Nightlife's features were expressionless, his eyes bored.

  "Last night, your room," Bobby said. "She claims you raped her."

  "Hey, lawyer man, do I look like I gotta force 'em?" He cocked his head, pointed with both index fingers to his presumably innocent face and showed a smile that was more of a wink, a nudge in the ribs.

  "You tell me. This is the second time around."

  "Shee-it! Old story, 'Meanor. Bitch complaining 'cause I tossed her out, didn't ask her number. She was moaning and groaning last night but feels used and abused in the morning."

  "Jackson, don't bullshit me. I'm your lawyer. The woman has a black eye, a split lip, two broken ribs, and contusions on her inner thighs."

  "Nightlife got a tool like an anaconda. Maybe she got bruised trying to ride it."

  "I said, don't bullshit me! We went through this before with the perfume counter clerk."

  "Right. How much is this one gonna cost me?"

  "How about five to ten in Huntsville?"

  "That ain't funny."

  "Neither is rape." Bobby's headache had spread down his neck and he hunched his shoulders like a bear. "I should never have gotten you off the first time."

  "What!" Nightlife jammed the heel of his hand into Bobby's chest. It was the same move he used to separate himself from a defensive back, a short push that disguises the power behind it. Bobby winced and took a step backward.

  "Your job is to get me off!"

  "No, my job is to make the state prove its case."

  "If it's her word against mine, how she gonna prove it?"

  "Did you rape her?" Bobby shouted. His legs felt unsteady and he knew his face was reddening. "Did you rape Janet Petty?"

  "I did that 'ho better than she ever been done, then I came out here today and won the game. People pay good money to see me catch the ball and boogie in the end zone. They don't care who I fucked or how I fucked her."

  "Did you rape her!"

  The player's shrug seemed to say, what's the big deal. His mouth was twisted into a mask of scornful derision. "Maybe she said to stop, but Nightlife was past the point of no return."

  "You ought to be put away." Saying it with more sadness than anger.

  "And who's gonna do it? You, 'Meanor? Your wife's got bigger balls than you."

  "I'm going to talk to Kingsley."

  He turned, but Nightlife grabbed his shoulder. "You do that, lawyer man! You tell the King. He knows who totes the mail, and it ain't you. I pay your salary! I am the main attraction and you're just an usher for the show."

  "You have an inflated opinion of your own worth."

  "Mr. K. thinks my worth is eleven million dollars a year plus performance bonuses."

  "When I talk to him, he may decide you're more trouble than you're worth."

  "If you had eyes up your ass, lawyer man, you still couldn't see shit! You don't have the power to touch me. You're a bitch just like that 'ho from last night."

  Bobby stepped close to Nightlife, invading what trial lawyers call the personal zone. He'd never lean over the rail and breathe on a juror this way, but just now, Bobby ached to get in Nightlife's face, and they stood nose-to-nose. Bobby knew the athlete could flatten him with one punch, but it didn't matter.

  "Okay tough guy!" Bobby yelled. "We know you can beat up cocktail waitresses and perfume clerks. What about me? You want some of me?"

  "Shee-it!" Nightlife said, mocking him. "Aren't you the guy who gives the lectures to the team every year? 'Some night you're gonna be in a bar, and some fool's gonna jack you up, challenge your manhood. But men, you gotta be the ones to back down, you gotta be the ones to say no.'" He cackled with laughter. "So, 'Meanor, I'm saying 'no' to sticking my Nikes so far up your ass, you're gonna have swooshes coming out your ears. I did my job today. Now you go do yours!"

  Holding onto his towel with one hand, Nightlife turned and walked back to the locker room.

  On his way to the parking lot, Bobby concluded that his client was right.

  Nightlife knows my job better than I do. My job is to protect the corporate assets. To wheedle and cajole judges, to obfuscate, confuse and muddy the issues. To warp illusion into truth and polish dung into gold. His job was to set Nightlife free so he could abuse some starry-eyed young woman all over again.

  He felt untethered, floating free in a dark cold space like a lost astronaut, caught between what he knew was right and what he was paid so handsomely to do. For years, he'd longed to cleanse his soul. How low had he fallen? He wanted to change, but how? Did he even have the courage to take on his father-in-law? In the battle for his soul, had he already surrendered the prize?

  "Have you a criminal lawyer in this burg?"

  "We think so but we haven't been able to prove it on him yet. "

  — Carl Sandburg, "The People, Yes"

  8

  The Road to Ruin is Paved with Foie Gras

  As sensitive as a swallow to a change in the wind, Christine had been concerned about Bobby's shifting moods for the past several months. But as hard as she tried, she still couldn't figure him out. Did he hate his job or hate her father? Was he insecure when measuring himself against Daddy?

  Oh Bobby, don't you know I love you just the way you are?

  She sat at the vanity mirror in her dressing area, brushing her blond hair, now loosened from its clips. She wore a peach-colored silk bathrobe and her knee was throbbing. The pain pills made her groggy, but she forced herself to focus on what Bobby was saying. She sensed that the tides of change were about to sweep Bobby in some new, uncharted direction, and it frightened her. He had always been so dependable. No drinking bouts with the guys from the office. No affairs. Now he seemed lost and needed her support more than ever.

  Listening to his mournful monologue, Christine quickly realized he wasn't just having a case of mid-career blues. When he came out of the locker room, there was something different about him. A seething anger, seemingly directed at himself.

  "I'm responsible," he had told her, pacing in their bedroom after midnight. "If I hadn't gotten Nightlife off, he'd have gone to jail, and this never would have happened. Now he thinks he can get away with anything, but why shouldn't he? I'm the one who enabled him."

  She measured her words like a baker with the sugar. "You're too hard on yourself, Bobby. You keep looking for perfection in the world and in yourself."

  She'd always accepted Daddy's explanations about the players' antics. They were easy pickings for the media and for women setting them up for lawsuits and extortion. At heart, the players were just a bunch of fun-loving, God-fearing, hard-working boys. But Daddy had fiddled with the truth, she knew.

  Some
times, in the car, she listened to radio talk shows, where callers attacked the team's character with nasty jokes:

  Q. What's another name for a Texas Crime Ring?

  A. A Mustangs huddle.

  Q. How do you get 45 Cowboy players to stand all at once?

  A. Will the defendant please rise?

  "I know how you feel about violence against women," he said, after a moment.

  Do you ever! You knew it the moment you charged into my life.

  The thought brought back a memory, and it send a spidery shiver up her spine. The blurry outline of another man's face came back to her then, the image she had seen when Nightlife seemed ready to strike her. It was Lowell Darby nearly a dozen years earlier.

  The spoiled youngest son of a Fort Worth banking family, Lowell was fifteen years her senior. Handsome, single, rich, the perfect match, her father told her. Only after their high-society engagement party did she discover he was also a passive-aggressive alcoholic with bipolar disorder. Given to binges, Lowell would become sullen and depressed. He rose from the abyss of his own self-pity by attacking those he loved, or more accurately, those who loved him. It began by pushing, then slapping, then a fist to the stomach. Even drunk, he was careful enough not to leave any marks.

  "Why do you make me do this?" he would cry, smacking Christine across the room.

  At first, Christine thought it was her fault. If only she were more caring and less demanding, if only she thought of him first, if only this, if only that…

  One night, she was working late, alone in her Mustangs Center office, when Lowell staggered through the door wearing a disheveled tux. Had she forgotten their date for the symphony or had he forgotten to tell her? It didn't matter. He shattered a vase against a Remington sculpture of a cowboy on a bucking bronco. He slapped her, raising a welt on her cheekbone, then shoved her across the office where she fell, knocking a computer monitor to the floor.

  "I only do this because I love you!" Darby shouted, as he pulled her head backward by the hair. She fought him off, clawing his face with her fingernails and screaming.

  In the corridor, headed toward the parking lot, the new associate in the general counsel's office heard the commotion and burst through the door, finding Lowell clutching her throat, squeezing the life out of her. She blacked out and never saw what happened, but when she came to, the lawyer was scooping her up into his arms. Lowell lay moaning on the floor, blood spurting from a broken nose, three teeth missing from his predator's smile.