If he loves his grandson, he can't be all bad, right?
"Blitz, blitz, blitz!" Scott yelled.
"Got him! A sack!" his grandfather fired back, smacking his grandson affectionately on the shoulder. "Good call, Scott."
Christine barely paid attention to the game. She was speaking rapidly into one of the many phones, explaining to an angry sponsor that his upper deck sign would be visible on TV again, as soon as stadium security tore down the homemade banner inadvertently obscuring his invitation to the Durango Saloon. Christine's spirits were upbeat as usual, even though her bandaged knee throbbed.
There was a stir in the suite as Dallas intercepted a pass and took over the ball at midfield. They trailed 10-7 early in the second quarter and needed a win to take over first place in the division. In the stands, the hometown fans began pumping up the volume.
"Did you make dinner reservations for tonight or did you forget?" she asked Bobby.
"Forget our anniversary? I remember the day we met. The Mustangs wore gray; you wore blue."
Christine smiled and nodded toward the front row where Scott was cheering. "Someone's having a good time."
"Scott's as addicted to the game as your father. Last night, I caught him devising a power rating to beat the point spread."
They watched Stringer complete a deep pass down the sideline, and the cheering echoed through the stadium. At the bar in the rear of the suite, someone watching the game on TV shouted, "First and ten at the twenty-one!"
"So where are you taking me for dinner?" Christine asked.
"To a candlelit dining room between our kitchen and the den."
"You expect me to cook?" She shot a look at her leg.
"Not you, me. I thought you'd be too uncomfortable in a restaurant."
She gave him an affectionate squeeze. "You're right. Thank you, darling. So what's for dinner?"
"Your choice. Snapper in white wine sauce or hamburger on the grill?"
"Why do I think I should order the burger?"
"Because I know how to make it?"
She laughed, and Bobby turned back toward the field where Stringer took the snap and backpedaled, side-stepping a blitzing linebacker.
"Nightlife's open!" Scott shouted from the front row.
"Hit him, Craig!" Kingsley yelled.
"Touchdown!" someone else cried out.
The stadium erupted in deafening cheers.
Bobby derived more pleasure watching his son enjoy the moment than from the play itself. Scott whirled toward his father. "Didja see that, Dad?"
Bobby gave his son two thumbs up.
"How 'bout them Moo-tongs!" Kingsley yelled.
"Awesome, Grandad!" Scott replied, and the two exchanged high fives.
It was a family joke. When still a toddler, unable to pronounce "Mustangs," Scott told his grandfather that he loved the "Moo-tongs." The name stuck and was even picked up by the Dallas sportswriters.
Bobby turned toward Christine who was waiting, puckered up. Another tradition, along with barbecue on Friday nights and church on Sunday mornings. When the Mustangs scored, so did he, with a long, lingering kiss.
As their lips touched, he felt the familiar surge of warmth run through him, and in that moment, he made a decision to live by.
I can put up with old Daddy-in-law. I won't do anything to jeopardize what I have.
A moment later, before their lips separated, the phone in front of him rang, a discordant jarring that rocked him out of his mellow mood.
Bobby picked up the phone as the clock ticked off the last few seconds of the first half. Dallas was ahead 14–10, but Bobby was oblivious to the score, indifferent to the future of the team. As the Assistant District Attorney spoke to him, Bobby felt feverish and his head throbbed.
A warrant had just been issued charging Wilbur "Nightlife" Jackson with sexual assault.
"Date rape, if you want to call it that," Larry Walters, the A.D.A. told him on the phone. "Name's Janet Petty, a cocktail waitress at the team hotel, single mother with a two-year-old at home. Nightlife invited her up to his room after her shift. They smoked some weed, drank some tequila. She told him she had to get home to her kid. He grabs her at the door, drags her to the bed and-"
"Star fucking groupie," Bobby said, playing defense lawyer, saying his scripted lines, repressing what he feared was true. "C'mon Larry. She went to a player's room at one a.m. and got stoned. It'll be her word against his on consent."
"She's got two broken ribs and assorted bruises to prove it, plus she passed the polygraph this morning," Walters said. "Did I mention she holds two jobs, goes to community college and sings in her church choir?"
Damn, a nightmare victim.
"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.