Titans

by Tim Green

  Hunter smiled weakly. Normally he would have taken special delight in foiling his friend's hand. But tonight he was preoccupied and still pulling on his original beer, the label of which was now tattered and the bottle warm. He couldn't stop thinking about the FBI agent's words. Hunter had never heard a talk like that before. It had shaken everyone up, and no one more than him. The team was used to the dynamic duo of Cutchins and Peel, who droned on amid catcalls and paper airplanes. Cook had been all business, and what he said was sobering.

  Hunter couldn't forget his words about the dead guy and his girlfriend. Maybe Cook could help him with Rizzo. Maybe that's what Rizzo was after, information from Hunter about the team. Rizzo was obviously involved with gambling; otherwise he could never have known about all of Hunter's and Metz's betting. Hunter couldn't get the notion out of his mind. It would be good to have a guy like Cook on your side, Hunter could tell that. The only question remaining was whether or not Hunter was in too deep already. If the league caught wind of his bets last season, it might be the end of his career.

  There was some shouting and a movement of most of the players toward the door. The locals, entrenched on their stools at the bar, lifted their heads and peered dull-eyed over their flannel-covered shoulders.

  "Come on," someone from the card game said, and together they got up and went outside to see what the commotion was about.

  Matt Brown and House, the Titans' enormous left offensive tackle, had coaxed a rookie wide receiver up onto the railing that separated the bridge's pedestrian traffic from the river twenty feet below. The entire team was outside now, forming a crowd around the precariously balanced rookie. Hunter heard splashing below and looked over the edge to see a rookie tight end floundering in the murky water, making his way slowly toward the bank.

  "Hell of a rookie initiation, huh?" Bert said to Hunter over his shoulder.

  Hunter looked up at his friend and shivered. The night had grown cool and a foul breeze was blowing down the canal.

  'That's crazy," Hunter said. He started toward the middle of the pack with Bert in tow. The rookie was pleading with House to let him down and not make him do it. House shook his head slowly and grinned from behind his dull, half-lidded eyes.

  "Come on, rook!" Matt Brown said impatiently. "All you rooks is going over the edge at the Ledge, so you might as well get on with it. We're all waiting."

  "Wait!" Hunter said amid the heckling from all sides. "Wait, House." House turned with an angry glare that softened when he realized whose voice it was, but his face remained resolute. The rookie would go off the bridge.

  "No, wait," Hunter implored. "House, let him down, man. I'm telling you, I saw a guy go off a bridge like this once when I was growing up. He got hurt bad. His head hit the water wrong and twisted his neck. It paralyzed him, man. He's in a chair now. Let that guy down, House."

  At the mention of paralysis, the entire team seemed to retract. Those closest to Hunter actually stepped back, the others grew quiet. The thought of a life without motion was the ultimate nightmare for a ball player. The word itself was like Kryptonite, mysteriously weakening the resolve of those who were exposed to it.

  "Come on, House," Bert said quietly, "Hunter's right. Let him down, man."

  Suddenly Murphy, the team's center, Hunter's connection to the offensive line and the only other guy that was almost as big as House, staggered up and bellowed, "You heard Hunter, you big, fat slob! If Hunter says down, then it's fucking down. Who took us to the big game?"

  House considered the faces of those around him. Matt Brown shrugged in consent, and House actually gave the rookie a hand down from his perch.

  "Gonna cut your hair off though, man," House said matter-of-factly to the grinning rookie. 'You ain't getting away without that."

  'That goes without saying," Murphy slurred, and then let out an enormous belch.

  The rest of the team nodded in agreement.

  Hunter looked at his watch. It was ten-fifteen.

  "Come on," he said to Bert quietly.

  "Hey, Hunt, we still got another half hour before we got to head back," Bert replied as he muscled a path through the throng.

  "I know. I've had enough, though," Hunter said. "I'm too old for this shit."

  The two of them walked silently through the quiet streets of Brockport toward the campus.

  After a few blocks Bert said, That was a good thing you did, Hunt."

  "Huh? Oh, yeah, it was no big deal," Hunter said.

  "Yeah, it was no big deal, but it could have been," Bert said. 'That's the difference between you and most guys in this game. You think ahead to what might happen. No one else was thinking maybe that rookie could have gotten hurt. Hell, a couple of them already went over the side before you got there. Those other guys wouldn't have thought about the consequences until it was too late. That's why you'll make it even after football, 'cause you think ahead."

  Hunter shrugged and said nothing. As they climbed the steps to the dorm where they were staying, Hunter thought about what Bert had said. For the most part he did think ahead and he had made the right decisions in his life. This gambling thing was something he had never expected, though. Who could have thought it? Everyone put a little money down. It was no big deal. Now, faced with the situation he was in, he had to make another choice. His instincts told him that the right thing to do was to call Agent Cook, tell him everything and beg for clemency. Hunter took the card out of his pocket and examined it as the elevator climbed to the eighth floor. There was a number on it that was followed by the words "twenty-four hours a day." He could go straight to the pay phone in the lounge on his floor and have it all out in the open.

  But there were so many reasons not to make the call that when he stepped off the elevator, he was still undecided. When he was undecided about something, he always relied on some old advice that a rich Pittsburgh booster had once given him when he was in college. The slick-looking man with longish gray hair and a custom-tailored suit had been one of the most liberal contributors to the football program. He had come from the German ghetto in Pittsburgh, and without so much as a high-school degree, he developed a company that produced almost every ATM machine in the United States. He was renowned for his business savvy, and he had told Hunter that his key to success had been to do nothing at all whenever he was undecided about something. That was what Hunter would do now, nothing. It would turn out to be the worst advice he could have ever followed.

  Chapter 20

  Tony Rizzo got out of his limousine and stepped onto the sidewalk along Fifth Avenue. The sun was visible just above the trees in Central Park even though the pale August sky was littered with high cumulus clouds that would soon block its rays. That was OK. The clouds repelled the late summer heat, and a breeze from the west seemed to freshen the air. It was a beautiful day in the city, one Tony Rizzo would normally be enjoying.

  Now, though, he ducked around the corner at Seventy-third and waited. A dark blue Crown Vic roared around the corner and slowed conspicuously as it passed him. It did keep going, even as Tony turned and went back to Fifth and headed south, but he knew all the same that he was being followed. He sighed to himself as he walked. He was tired of it. He wanted them to go away.

  At first, being followed everywhere by the feds had been a novelty, and a badge of his own success. Weeks later, it was starting to take its toll on him. Deals were harder to make. And deals he had already struck were proving hard to keep. Tony thought about the row of town homes in Great Neck that had burned just last night. That wouldn't have been necessary if he could have responded immediately to the developer's irate phone call.

  The guy was a red-headed pain in the ass by the name of Grossman, an Irish Jew of all things, and he had gotten out of line. The deal Tony struck with him had been that he would pay fifty thousand cash and hire all union labor for the job. There had also been a provision for one of Tony's new people to be hired on as a consultant for thirty dollars an hour. The guy was some new blood t
hat Angelo was bringing along.

  Carl Lutz was the new guy, and he began showing up almost on a daily basis. When Grossman asked him why he was always hanging around, Carl replied that he was keeping an eye on things. Grossman then told Carl that he could watch from across the street but to keep his pimply face off the site except for Fridays when he collected his paycheck. Carl took exception to the description of his face and had ended up flattening Grossman's nose. Grossman called Rizzo's office immediately and insisted Carl be terminated. Of course, no one insisted on anything to Tony Rizzo, but since his phone was wired he could only let the irate Grossman vent his wrath before saying, "I'm sorry you feel that way, Mr. Grossman."

  Tony had raced out of his office and around the block to a clean pay phone to call Grossman back and rip him a new ass, letting him know that he'd fucked with the wrong guy. Grossman, however, had already left his office. Emboldened by Tony's apparent passivity, Grossman canned the union electricians on the site and brought in a nonunion group from upstate by the next morning. The damage was done. So much of the family's power was derived from its image, and Tony had been slighted by Grossman. He was left with no choice but to have the entire project burned to the ground on principle.

  It had cost him the entire fifty grand to bring in an expert from New Orleans who did work of that caliber, so Tony was netting zero on a job that should have shown a nice profit. His uncle would not be happy about it, and Tony was sure that he would give someone else the new work on the Island because of it. Although it was good for the family's business overall to make a statement that told people they expected others to honor their deals, it would be bad for him personally because the other builders would tell his uncle that they'd prefer to work with someone a little more even-tempered. Tony knew just who that would be, too, his cousin Vincent, Jr., fresh out of business school and already making moves on the more legitimate end of the family's businesses. Tony was so angry that he would have had Carl's hands broken if Angelo didn't like him so much. Angelo was usually right about people, and besides, he had to be indulged in some things.

  As if the legitimate part of his operations weren't going bad enough, the other end of things were not much better. People on the street knew he was marked by the feds and they weren't anxious to be brought down when the law finally caught up with him. This infuriated Tony. The Feds would never get him. His uncle, who always got information from people in high places, had told him to be patient and that if he could keep himself out of trouble for a while it would all blow over. Tony couldn't help wondering, though, if in fact his uncle wasn't feeling the heat of a young buck in the herd. He wondered if his uncle wasn't just telling him to slow down to keep him down. Of course, Tony wondered a lot of things. He was always wondering, always thinking.

  Tony would stop every so often and turn quickly. There was no sign of the Crown Vic and no one he could tell was following him on foot. He knew they were there all the same, though. It seemed they were always there now, and he'd seen the Crown Vic before. Tony reached his building. A gloved doorman in green-and-gold livery opened the door. Neither of them spoke. That was how Tony liked it, and the help around the building knew better than to try to make small talk with him. Tony would meet even the simplest greeting with an icy glare.

  Mikey, Angelo, and Angelo's new sidekick, Carl Lutz, were waiting for him in the lobby. Carl wore a double-breasted suit made by Angelo's tailor and a pair of alligator shoes. He looked like a new man. When they saw Tony, all three men snapped to attention and followed him into the elevator. No one said anything until they were inside Tony's apartment with the door shut.

  This place clean?" Tony asked Mikey, and then told Carl to get them some beers from the fridge as he kicked up his feet on the coffee table.

  Mikey nodded furiously.

  "I had the guy come through here this afternoon at four-thirty and he said that the place was fine except for the phones. The only place we couldn't check was the bedroom."

  Tony was loosening his de. He stopped abruptly.

  "And why the fuck didn't you have him check the bedroom?" Tony demanded.

  Mikey shrugged nervously and said, "Well, Tony, she wouldn't let me . . ."

  "What the fuck does that mean, 'she wouldn't let me'?" Tony said in a mocking, wimpish tone.

  Mikey shrugged. His face flushed. "You know how she can be, Tony, she told me . . . she said if I did not go away she'd rip my balls off and . . ."

  "And what?" Tony said, grinning at Angelo, delighted now with Mikey's embarrassment.

  ". . . and . . . and, she said she'd crush them ... in her teeth."

  Tony howled. So did Angelo. Carl came in with the beers and he began to laugh, although he didn't know at what. Mikey snatched his beer from Carl.

  "You shut the fuck up," he said to the behemoth.

  Carl hung his head and obeyed, sitting in a chair that was outside the immediate circle. This made Tony and Angelo laugh harder. Anyone walking in on them at that moment would have thought them four successful uptown businessmen sipping imported beer in their custom suits, alligator shoes, and Rolex watches. But one would only have to stay a moment, hear their language, and see the insidious shadows lurking in their eyes to suspect that something about these outwardly dapper men was amiss.

  Tony looked at his watch. "Well, I did just plan to have a beer with you guys and go over a few things, but it looks like my woman is going to be late as usual getting ready, and I ain't going in there to get her," he said, nodding toward the bedroom, "not if she's talking about crushing people's balls. Mikey, why don't you call for some Chinese food. Get me some of that fucking General Tso's chicken."

  Mikey took orders and phoned out for the Chinese food. Tony finished his beer, and while Carl went to the kitchen for more, he pulled out a deck of cards and began dealing a game of five-card draw. The food arrived and the talk diminished into grunts, most of which were directed at the card play. When everyone was finished, Carl cleaned things up and brought more beer and sat down.

  After a few moments of silent play, Angelo, who was sitting next to his understudy in a club chair, fished into his jacket, pulled out his pistol and cocked the hammer. Carl felt the cold barrel pressed gently against his ear. He felt sick.

  "So," Angelo said calmly, looking at Tony, "you want me to kil1 my young friend for fucking things up with that builder?"

  Tony looked long and hard at Carl. Carl's lower lip began to tremble involuntarily. Beads of sweat broke out along his hairline. Angelo took a sip of beer with his free hand. Mikey couldn't contain his grin.

  Finally Tony said, "Nahhh."

  The three of them burst into laughter again. This time Carl did not follow suit. Angelo slapped him gruffly on the back.

  "Come on," Angelo grunted amid his laughter, "we was only kidding your ass."

  Carl smiled tentatively and excused himself to the bathroom, where he began vomiting loudly to the delight of his companions. By the time they had settled back down to their game Tony was wiping tears from his eyes. It was times like this that he really loved what he did for a living. The times he spent with his friends were what it was all about. He was convinced that his ascension to power within the family would make these moments only more frequent and more enjoyable. He could envision the four of them reliving this very night while the rest of the family watched on with envy, wishing that they too were in the inner circle. Power, Tony believed, enabled one to truly enjoy die finer things in life.

  "So, Tony," Angelo said, taking two cards and turning the conversation to business, "what's the deal with Hunter Logan?"

  This was one Tony had been giving a lot of thought to, so he was glad when Angelo brought it up.

  "I got this guy pegged," Tony replied, setting down his cards and leaning forward. "But I'm letting him stew right now while the team is away at training camp. I don't want to get him riled up right now. I want him to get nice and comfy. Then, when the regular season comes rolling around and the money on the
Titans is heavy, then I'm gonna give that fucker a call."

  Everyone nodded with satisfaction at the notion of their boss having one of the country's hottest sports figures by the balls. They felt that they too shared in this power, and to a small extent they did.

  "How much you figure we can make off this deal?" Cometti asked.

  "I figure this," Tony said. "With the team doing as well as they did last year, we were seeing about eight million in action every Sunday by the end of the season. A lot of it was lay-off that we had to take from other places because so many of the people in this town wanted money on the Titans no matter what we did with the line. With Logan shaving some points for us, we can fudge the line, back off on the lay-off action from the opposing city, and let the books go unbalanced at about two million to six ..."

  Tony paused dramatically for effect and then said, 'That's four million a hit we can clear without anyone being the wiser. If I handle him right, I figure I can work Logan about once a month. That's sixteen million over the course of the season, and twenty if we get a shot during the play-offs."

  The foursome sat quietly, each of them reflecting on the wealth they would be generating, and each wondering how much of it they would actually see go into their own pockets. For Tony, the feat itself would be as important as the money. It would show the rest of the organization that he had the creativity and the power to lead the family when his uncle was gone. The idea of his uncle being gone made him consider the large frame of Carl. Already, after the incident in Great Neck, he was building a reputation for himself as a loose cannon. Angelo would never kill Tony's uncle, but Carl ... it could be the perfect coup. Carl could kill his uncle, and then Tony could have somebody kill Carl to cover his tracks. Tony put this into the back of his mind.

  He took a long pull on his beer, then saw Camille through the corner of his eye emerging from the bedroom with a vodka tonic in her hand. She was dressed for dinner in a stunning, electric-blue sequined dress. She sauntered up behind Tony and rested one hand casually on the back of his neck while sipping her drink. Tony exposed his gold watch dramatically and cleared his throat.