Stephanie and I spent halftime getting it on again. We got into it so deeply that I didn’t even miss a stroke at the beginning of the second half when Branch wrestled Plunkett’s pass away from Young in the end zone to put the Raiders ahead twenty-one to three. Nor did I allow Bahr’s subsequent field goal to distract me. Hell, at twenty-four to three, I figured my bet was down the drain anyway. I put Philly-spot-three out of my mind and humped in keeping with my reputation as Steve Victor, the one-and-only Man from O.R.G.Y. The best rational guidance one can supply youth, after all, is to set an example.
“Ooh!” Stephanie was appreciative. “Ahh! There! Stick it there! That’s right!. . . Now there! Harder! . .. Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!” Her ass burned red hot to my balls bouncing off it.
The fourth quarter began with a grinding corkscrew motion that had the two of us twisting like tortured tops. Jaworski connected with Keith Krepfle and the Eagles had their first TD. “Don’t!” Stephanie moaned when I showed signs of interest in this development. Obediently I kept screwing while I listened for confirmation of the extra point. Who do I know who might be getting this on video cassette? I wondered to myself as I pounded away at the panting, moaning, writhing redhead.
“Now, Steve! I’m there again! I’m going to come! I’m—”
Bahr kicked a thirty-five yard field goal to make it twenty-seven to ten and my telephone rang.
“Don’t stop!” Stephanie begged as I answered It.
“Hello.” I didn’t stop.
“Hello, is this Steve Victor of the Organization for the Rational Guidance of Youth?”
“I’m coming! I’m co—!”
“Yes. This is Steve Victor.”
“This is Charles Putnam, Mr. Victor. Do you remember me?”
Did I remember him? Did Faust remember Mephistopheles? Now I stopped.
“Steve! What happened? You went all soft!” Stephanie was in tears.
“I remember you,” I told Charles Putnam grimly.
“Good. Then I’ll come directly to the point. I have need of your services, Mr. Victor.”
Collection Day for Souls, Brother Faust! I flopped limply out of the distraught Stephanie. “Need of my services,” I echoed. The words were like a warning bell reminding me of just who the devil was on the other end of my phone.
Charles Putnam, in the days when I’d had dealings with him, was the top shadow executive of the United States government. His niche was somewhere in the cracks between the spheres of diplomacy and espionage. Here, snugly hooked into the State Department and the CIA, although acknowledged by neither, Putnam influenced such decisions as the Bay of Pigs, the assassination attempts on Castro, the establishment of a series of puppet regimes in Vietnam, the toppling of Allende in Chile, the training of secret police for the Shah of Iran, the extrication of the Pahlevi booty when the Ayatollah came frothing to power, and many others less well known. Presidents from Eisenhower through Carter had been guided by his judgments in their continuation of U.S. foreign policy. And yet, according to each of them in turn, Charles Putnam did not exist.
His colorless persona was undisturbed by grey hair, a grey face, and an addiction to custom-made grey flannel suits which followed fashion in the width of their lapels, but otherwise were indistinguishable one from the other. The epitome of the laid-back policy setter, he was so adept at fading into the background as to have all but mastered the art of invisibility. The compleat patriot, the revelation of error in no way diminished his dedication. If the wrong cables were sometimes sent and the wrong armies sometimes moved (or the right armies in the wrong direction), Charles Putnam nevertheless pursued his course unquestioningly and without deviation, secure in his faith that despite minor misjudgments the rightness of Our Cause must ultimately prevail. His patriotic fervor was both dynamic and inspirational. So much so, indeed, that I had myself responded to it on more than one occasion in the past.
Need of my services. . . “Espionage?” Those past experiences phrased the question I now spoke into the telephone.
“Oh, no, Mr. Victor. I’m retired from government service,” Putnam informed me.
On the TV screen the game was winding down. In the bed beside me, Stephanie was glaring at me and playing with herself. “If not spying, then what?” I asked.
“I can only answer that, Mr. Victor, by asking you a question.” I could visualize his thin lips pursing. “What is the major focus of America today?”
I glanced at the TV set. The camera panned over the filled bleachers. Prime time. Sunday night. Millions watching. “The Superbowl,” I replied.
“Quite right.” Putnam agreed. “Football. That is the main concern of America today. The gridiron is a microcosm of our nation -- its raw energy, its spirit of cooperation, its smooth performance, its aspirations and goals. Indeed, American ideals are both formulated and expressed on the gridiron.”
Jesus! I glanced at Stephanie. Maybe she was right about football after all.
“What are you getting at, Mr. Putnam? Just what is it that you want from me?”
“Some associates of mine have asked me to retain your services as an expert in the field of sexuality. The assignment has to do with football.”
“I’m not interested. I don’t like working for you or your ‘associates’, Mr. Putnam. In the past, no matter how it started out, it always ended up with somebody shooting at me. I don’t like being shot at, Mr. Putnam.”
“This assignment isn’t like that, Mr. Victor. There is no danger.”
“Ha!” I snorted disbelievingly. “The answer is still no.”
“Would a great deal of money influence you to change your mind, Mr. Victor?”
I would not put a .45 slug into my mother for a great deal of money. I would not perpetrate atrocities against little children. I would not commit vivisection on cocker spaniel puppies. I would not vote for Ed Koch. Such are the principles I would not violate for a great deal of money. There may be a few others, but Putnam’s proposition did not seem to be among them.
“How much money is a great deal?” I inquired cautiously.
Putnam mentioned a figure.
“That,” I granted, “is a great deal of money.”
“I thought that you would think so, Mr. Victor. Stephanie’s tongue was licking one of her elongated red nipples. Two fingers of her hand were plunging in and out between her straining thighs. Her gasps were audible. Her eyes were slowly crossing.
“What do I have to do for it?” I asked Putnam.
“Are you familiar with the plight of the Whittier Stonewalls, Mr. Victor?”
“Sure. The Walls are the joke team of professional football. They just ended in the subbasement for the second season in a row. Any third grade Little League team could take ’em without eating their Wheaties. But why would they interest you and your associates?”
“Sentiment.”
I thought about that. “Bullshit!” I decided.
“Suppose I told you that my associates own a controlling interest in the Whittier Stonewalls, Mr. Victor?”
“Now that kind of sentiment I understand. But how do you come to be associated with people with such lousy business judgment, Mr. Putnam?”
“We provided the financial backing to enfranchise and run the team. No matter what you may think, it was and is pure altruism. We are paying tribute to the most famous bench-warmer in Whittier College football history. Surely I need not identify this statesman by name, Mr. Victor.”
“Nope. But why would you want to honor a 'statesman’ whose most famous public utterance is 'I am not a thief’4 ?”