by Tim Green
"Like Delta Force or something!" Spinnicker suggested.
"Yeah, like the motherfuckin' fuckin' Delta Force! They sealed off that buildin like it was the motherfuckin raid on Entebbe, guns everywhere."
"I saw that movie, man! That was the Israelis! They kicked some ass."
"And up backs this white van, right up to the motherfuckin' front door, an' they wrap that bitch up in plastic and cart her ass off like a motherfuckin' rug or somethin. Then, the head brother--what'd you call that head brother, Conrad?"
"That was the Rocket," Dobbins said with the hint of a smile. "Rocket was my welterweight back in the seventies. Had a goddamn good punch but the motherfucker bled too much."
"Yeah, Rocket. Brother was like ice. A black motherfucker, black as tar. So the Rocket gets ol' boy Gaston--"
"The manager--"
"Yeah, an just puts a gun right up to his heart and tells that motherfucker he didn't see nothin, an ol' boy pees right in his motherfuckin' pants and starts blubberin' about his mama an' how she's countin' on him and then Rocket says, 'Shut the fuck up,' an' ol' boy does quick."
"So Rocket says, 'Who's this bitch's pimp?' An Gaston tells him quick. And we get in the van an go straight to where Gaston said the pimp was."
"Rocket don't care 'bout no pimp," Dobbins explained to them. "A ho an a pimp and Rocket works it all out quick."
Trane nodded, but flashed Dobbins a scowl so he'd shut up and let him tell the story.
"So the bitch was an illegal alien," Trane continued, "from fuckin Chechnya or somethin'. An' the only one really knows the deal with her is the pimp, an' Rocket just walks right into that pimp's place, one a them nice old places off Saint Charles Street, and me an the other brothers waitin' in the van with the dead bitch in back--"
"Like a rug," someone said.
"Just like a motherfuckin' rug, yeah," Trane said with a grin so big you could see his gold-plated incisors. "And next thing I know the brothers is loadin' two more motherfuckin' bodies into the back!"
"The pimp?"
"And his bitch! Rocket, he just did 'em, bang-bang, and wrapped 'em up in motherfuckin' plastic."
"No muss, no fuss," Dobbins said with a satisfied nod. "Shit."
"But this's what freaks me," Trane said. He stopped to take a swig from his drink and make careful eye contact with his cronies before going on. "Me an' those brothers go straight to where they're buildin' a casino on the corner of Canal an' Tchoupitoulas!"
"Downtown," Dobbins explained.
"Right in the middle of the motherfuckin city!" Trane said.
"In the goddamn day?" Christianson wanted to know.
"Monday mornin ," Trane said. "So Rocket pulls into that site and backs the motherfuckin van right up to a ditch. Then that boy hops out and gets into a motherfuckin' cement mixer, a truck. The brothers dump the bodies in that ditch. It's a hole, you know, with boards all around it."
"For the foundation," Dobbins said.
"feah, an as soon as they're down in there the Rocket starts mixin cement an the shit starts shootin' right in over the top of 'em."
"And nobody's around?" Christianson said incredulously.
"Nobody right there. There was people working around, but we was like in the corner of the site and there was a big motherfuckin fence on the street side and a pile of dirt on the other an' Rocket just filled that ditch to the top. Then we get in the van an' he drops me off at my car an' that's it. Didn't say nothin'."
The steady hum of night insects filled the silence while the men gauged one another's reaction.
"I told him to stay outta trouble," Dobbins said, as if Trane wasn't there.
"We got paid," Trane said.
"Twenty million up front, biggest deal in the NFL," Spin- nicker said with a wistful nod of his head.
"But that shit was too close," Dobbins complained. "I can't call the motherfuckin Rocket every time. We were lucky it went off smooth."
"You got people in L. A.," Trane said casually.
"I got people everywhere," Dobbins admitted. "Anyone knows that, it's you. You cost me more favors than the rest of my clients combined."
"I make ya mo' money too," Trane said with a grin.
"Twenty million," Christianson repeated.
"He don't do too bad wit' me," Spinnicker complained.
"Yeah, you make me money," Dobbins said to Trane with disgust. "But one day you gonna go too far, an then all yd money an all my connections ain't gonna be worth a rat's dick."
"Hey, I was doin' what I was supposed to be doin'," Trane glowered. "You said, 'You wanna bang a bitch around? Get you a ho.' So I get a ho an' she OD's. That's my fault? Fuck you."
Zee shifted behind the agent.
"An' fuck you, too!" Trane said, scowling at the enormous bodyguard in the shadows. "I'll take you out like a bitch!"
"Easy, man."
"Go cool, Trane." "Chill."
Dobbins seemed unaffected. He looked up calmly from the domino he'd been twisting end over end.
"You're bad motherfucker, Trane Jones," he said with a deadpan face. "But that's the way I like you."
Chapter 7
You're a good man, Clark Cromwell," Tom's wife, Vikki, said to him just before he walked out onstage at the ballroom of the Century Plaza. She knew what had happened to him with the team. Pretty much everyone did by now, so it was particularly embarrassing to go out there and have himself auctioned off with everyone knowing he'd been let go.
"They should have saved me till the end," he said, looking into her compassionate eyes. "I'm damaged goods."
"You'll probably bring in more than anyone," she said hopefully.
After finishing a list of his accomplishments and detailing the elegant evening in store for the highest bidder, the MC announced Clark's name. The PA system let fly with a little screech and Clark walked out onto the temporary stage amid polite clapping. He tripped just a bit on a duct-taped seam. His cheeks reddened.
He was wearing an ill-fitting rented tuxedo from a store that had donated all the evening wear for the bachelors being auctioned. The old man who'd tried to fit him became exasperated after an hour of fussing and finally used safety pins to gather up the excess material. Any jacket that could encompass Clark's shoulders and any shirt that could fit his neck were designed for a fat man. His legs, too, were cramped despite the fact that the pants, like the coat, were gathered together in the back by two industrial-size safety pins.
Standing there shifting uncomfortably beneath a horseshoe of pink and white balloons, Clark's attention was arrested by a woman. In a town where so many people were beautiful, she was the first to grab him by the throat with her looks alone. She wasn't flashy. He didn't go for that. She was pure and plain and simple, but still incredibly beautiful. Her blond hair was pulled back and unadorned. Her navy blue dress was unassuming. If she wore makeup, it was so slight it wasn't worth mentioning. If she were spoiled, you would never know by her ingenuous smile. If she were rich, the only giveaway was when she started to bid for Clark and kept bidding against a plastic-looking redhead in her mid-forties wearing an emerald green sequin dress.
The two women went back and forth, the redhead staring malignantly at the blonde, the blonde completely unfazed. When the auctioneer went from four thousand to five thousand, Clark heard someone in the audience gasp. There was big money in L. A., but only Mitch Faulkner, the team's quarterback, had brought in more than three thousand dollars.
At six thousand the redhead hesitated.
"Ten thousand," the blonde said in a quiet voice that seemed out of place.
The redhead pursed her lips and shook her head no.
Clark felt his face go hot.
"Ten thousand once, ten thousand twice, sold to the young lady for ten thousand dollars!"
Applause erupted from the crowd. Clark turned sheepishly and walked backstage.
"Clark!" Vikki was beaming. "You were great!"
Clark shrugged. He felt like a complete idiot. In the green room the players
who had already been auctioned slapped his back and teased him mercilessly, accusing him of a setup.
"Bet it's his sister!" someone yelled above the din.
"You ain't that good-looking," barked Garvey, the center, who'd brought in a measly nine hundred dollars.
"I know that," Clark said in a subdued voice, unable to think of an appropriate response.
"He knows that!" Garvey bellowed. "What a pisser!"
Clark hid in the bathroom backstage. He let the reception get into full swing before stepping from behind the curtain and quickly mixing into the crowd.
"Champagne?" asked a young waiter with a tray full of long- stemmed glasses filled to the brim.
Clark broke out a guilty smile, nodded, and took two, wondering if he'd imagined it or the kid had really winked.
His conscience delicately nagged him for having the wine, but only until the alcohol reached his brain. Then he felt much better, and his unusual indulgence didn't seem to be that big a deal. Emboldened, he began to search the room for his charity date.
She was standing with two other women not far from the bar beside a sixteen-foot column of the ubiquitous pink and white balloons. The other two looked more like L. A.--colored hair, tight dresses, heavy lipstick--real vamps.
They were talking.
"God, Angel, it's so you to do something crazy," Clark heard one of them say.
The talking stopped when they realized Clark was hovering behind them. The two other women eyed him up and down. One gave a quiet giggle. Clark tugged at his ill-fitting pants.
"Hello," said the quiet pretty blonde, extending her hand, "I'm Annie."
"Clark," he said, trying not to look at the two friends.
"Bye, girls," Annie said pleasantly, and they were gone.
"That was easy," he said. " 'Bye, girls' and they're gone . . ." "Old friends," she told him. "They're bored with me now anyway. They're from a different way of life."
"Can I ... get you a drink, or ... or something?"
"Oh, I already had one. That's my limit," she said cheerfully. "But if you want, you go right ahead."
"Gosh, that's so nice to hear you say," Clark told her. "I don't drink. I mean, I don't normally drink. I'm not drinking now. I mean, really drinking, but I had a drink. Well, I had two, but it was because I guess I was... I don't know. I don't really drink."
"Sounds like you need another one," Annie said, deadpan.
They both laughed. Clark suddenly didn't mind that his tuxedo fit poorly. He didn't care if his teammates saw him blushing. He wasn't even worried about the two glasses of champagne.
"Ten thousand dollars," he said.
"I don't usually do things like that either, but. . . well, it's a great cause and I'll be honest, it's not my money. It's my father's money. My father's dead, but he had a thing about charity or at least the appearance of charity. Part of his will reads that I have ten thousand dollars a year to give to charity. So every year I just kind of put it all in one place. When my friends told me about this action and it was for St. Jude, well . . . why not, I figured."
"Why didn't you just go right to ten?" Clark said with a crooked grin.
"Maybe I thought I could get two of you for five apiece?" she said.
"Or ten for one," he said.
"I only wanted one," she told him. Her eyes were pale green, almost milky, like the stones he'd seen in some Indian jewelry on a trip to Mexico.
A charge of power went right through his middle. It was one of those moments. He'd been expecting less than nothing from the evening, and now . . . She was beautiful beyond description.
"Do you realize," he told her, "we've been standing here for five minutes without looking away from each other's eyes?"
"Isn't that how people usually talk to each other?" she said.
"No, they don't," he said. "They look away, off to the side or at their shoes or watch or something, but people don't usually just look right into someone's eyes."
"Does it mean anything?" she said with a straight face.
Clark didn't know how to take her. He chuckled lightly and looked away.
"I broke the spell!" she said.
"No," he told her, looking back. "I don't think you did."
Clark had scheduled his date with the people from St. Jude for the night after the fund-raiser because he wanted to get it over with. Now he wished he'd had a little more time to prepare. He picked Annie up in a limousine only because it was part of the deal. He didn't want to seem ungrateful to the people who had worked so hard at the event. He wore a camel hair blazer, the same one he wore every season to the team's kickoff luncheon, the only formal jacket he owned. Underneath it were a pink oxford shirt and a pair of his nicest jeans with his ostrichskin cowboy boots. The restaurant where they were going was new but fancy. When he called they told him jackets were required, unusual in L. A.
The car pulled up to a handsome beachfront condo in Santa Monica and Clark went to the door. He was surprised to see Annie in the same dress she'd been wearing the night before.
"I don't really have a lot in the way of dress-up clothes," she said apologetically when they were seated inside the car.
"Really? Me too," Clark told her. "This is my only jacket. I never go places like this. You probably know that from the tux I had on."
"That wasn't a custom tux?" she said, her eyes widening.
He looked at her closely in the dim light of the car to see if she was for real.
Finally she said, "I thought those safety pins were mono- grammed."
He laughed. "Pretty bad, huh?"
"Look, just so you know," she told him seriously, "part of the reason I bid so high for you was the bad tux. Not just that, but that was the thing that gave me an idea that what's on the inside* is a lot more important to you than what's on the outside."
"Yeah," he said slowly. "It is."
"I didn't really grow up that way," she told him. "It was one of those households where he who dies with the most toys wins."
"But not you," he said.
"No. I saw what it did and I promised myself I wouldn't have that."
Clark wondered about the damage, but knew enough not to ask. Instead he said, "I grew up with my dad for a while, in Alaska. When I was thirteen he died and I went to live with my mom in Portland. Clothes and things like that. . ." He shook his head. "No, she didn't go in for that stuff. I remember she used to get my sneakers at the grocery store. She was the only person I ever knew who bought sneakers at the grocery store."
"I don't think my mother even went to the grocery store," Annie said. "That's how out of touch we were."
"My mom and my sister never seemed to care," Clark said. "It was like they were on some different wavelength. I tried not to mind, but for some reason, that kind of stuff, you know, drinking powdered milk because it saved the environment--"
"Saved the environment?"
Clark shrugged. "You know, less packaging. One big box could mix up about ten gallons. Think of the plastic we never used."
"I grew up on Diet Coke," Annie said. "No calcium, no vitamin D, lots of packaging." She smiled warmly at him. "But it must have been good in some ways to grow up that way."
"It was. I sure appreciate everything I have now. I don't worship things, but I appreciate having, like, my truck, or, you know, a dishwasher."
"That's a wonderful way to be," Annie said, the glimmer in her eyes letting Clark really believe it. They rode for a while, each in their own thoughts.
"How about you?" Clark said. "There must have been good things."
"I got a BMW for my sweet sixteen," she said absently, looking out the window.
Clark nodded to himself. That was something. "I had a Subaru wagon when I was sixteen. I bought it with money I made unloading fish at the market downtown. Then we had an ice storm one night and the accelerator froze up when I was starting it and it shot right down the driveway and into the street and I got broadsided by a delivery truck and flipped about ten times."
"Ten times?"
"Well, probably six, but it might as well have been ten."
"Were you hurt?"
"It scalped me," he said.
She looked at him funny.
"Cut the top of my head off like a divot of grass. It kind of hung there. It didn't hurt, but you should have seen my mom's face when she came out of the house after she heard the crash, screaming her head off. Then she saw me and passed out, right there in the street. And I was so worried about her I didn't even realize about my scalp until the paramedics showed up and the girl, she bent right over and starting heaving when she saw me. Then I realized I had blood running all down my face and I felt up on my head and felt my skull. It was all sticky with blood but I knew what it was and then I started freaking out."
"But you were all right?"
"Yeah," Clark said, proudly pulling back his hair to show her his hairline. "They sewed it back on real good and you can t even tell unless you look real close in the light."
"So that's not why you keep your hair long," she said.
"No. I just keep it that way."
"I like it. . ." she said.
The car pulled up in front of an antebellum-style mansion on Wilshire.
"So here we are," Clark said.
The driver hurried out to open the door for them, but before he could get there Clark was already out on the curb. He held out his arm for Annie and they mounted the brick steps. Inside they met the maitre d's frown with expectant smiles.
"Cromwell for two," Clark said.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Cromwell," he said, barely hiding his disdain, "but we do not allow jeans at Le Bon."
Despite his frail build the man looked the part in his tailored European suit with his pencil mustache and slicked-back hair.
Clark fumbled with his words. His face felt warm, but he forgot everything when Annie erupted in French. He had no idea what she was saying but he knew she was chewing him out pretty good. It was as if she'd become another person altogether, rage seething from her imperious scowl as she barked. It was enough of a scene so that the people in the room immediately adjacent to the entryway stopped eating to watch. When she was done it was the maitre d's turn to blush. He bent and mumbled a quiet apology before leading them to a wonderful table in the back by the window overlooking a courtyard fountain.
