Paydirt

by Paul Levine

  Paydirt

  Paul Levine

  Paul Levine

  Paydirt

  PART ONE

  LOSING IT ALL

  1

  A Rebel Without Balls

  Bobby Gallagher had it all. A beautiful, savvy wife he adored, a whiz kid son who amazed him, and a high-profile, high-prestige job that his law school classmates would have sued their mothers to land. So what the hell was wrong?

  I bend the rules until they break. I use my degree as a license to warp justice and perpetuate frauds. I'm a lawyer who's lost his moral compass and doesn't know how to find it.

  He pondered these thoughts while sipping margaritas. After the third drink, he reached a conclusion. He would change his life.

  But how, without giving up all the perks that come with my job as a professional prick?

  Bobby was reclining on a wooden chaise lounge on his father-in-law's patio, an expanse of flagstone shaped like the Texas Panhandle and nearly as large. The patio jutted from the rear of Martin Kingsley's weekend ranch house, a rustic building the size of several football fields in the Hill Country southwest of Dallas.

  The margarita was heavy on tequila and light on lime, just as Bobby liked it. Just as singer Peggy Lee liked it when she guzzled the first one ever poured, according to local legend, in a Galveston bar fifty years ago.

  My life has become a Peggy Lee song. "Is that all there is?"

  Bobby caught sight of Kingsley, sending him deeper into a funk.

  My host, my boss, my father-in-law. Mein Fuhrer.

  Kingsley owned pro football's Dallas Mustangs, which he liked to call "America's Team." Today, Kingsley wore a white chef's hat and a shimmering black suit with silver shoulder piping and a string tie, as he supervised a dozen cooks who were roasting corn-fed turkeys-plump as country parsons-on a brick grill the size of a factory furnace. White plumes of smoke swirled in the clear November air, carrying the aroma of dripping meat and savory spices, whipping up appetites, adding to the holiday mood.

  Bobby doubted that the Pilgrims ever imagined Thanksgiving the way Kingsley celebrated it. Turkeys stuffed with corn tamales, venison picadillo, walnut bread pudding with rum sauce, all prepared by Dallas' finest chefs. The nouvelle Texas cuisine was far from Kingsley's hardscrabble roots of hog jowls and black-eyed peas, Bobby knew.

  The Thanksgiving feast was held one day late because Kingsley's Mustangs were busy on the holiday making mincemeat out of the Eagles. All of the team's higher echelon employees and their families were here, herded down from Dallas across cypress-lined rivers, through the bigtooth maple forests aflame with autumn colors. Bobby and the other front office folks came by bus. Traveling by chartered jet to a private airfield were the on-the-field folks-the agile, mobile, hostile young men who each Sunday wore knickers and plastic hats and crashed into each other with felonious intent at ferocious speeds. They all headed to Kingsley's ranch house known modestly as Casa del Conquistador. It was one of the man's possessions, along with his Dallas mansion that resembled a Southern plantation, his private jet, various oil and gas exploration companies, extensive real estate, two refineries, and, of course, his prize football team.

  And me, too. He's got clear title to my sorry ass.

  Bobby considered his father-in-law to be both the most giving and most demanding man he had ever known. After Bobby married Christine, Kingsley made him general counsel of the team, though his credentials were thin. The two men constantly clashed, Bobby balking at Kingsley's insistence that he zealously defend the players from the law, the league, ex-wives, and creditors.

  No, strike that, Your Honor. We haven't "clashed." I'm too chicken shit for that. Kingsley gives orders. I whine my lawyerly dissent. He orders again, louder, and I comply. I'm a rebel without balls.

  When it came to the Mustangs, Kingsley instructed Bobby to follow the rule coined by the late Al Davis, owner of the Oakland Raiders.

  "Just win, baby."

  Earlier that week, Bobby had again followed that simple instruction. He walked Buckwalter Washington out of the courthouse, beating an assault and battery charge. He didn't win with courtroom theatrics, but rather by quietly suborning perjury. Bobby listened as his chief witness took the redundant oath-the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth — then told a lie, a whole lie, and nothing but a lie.

  Under Bobby's questioning, the witness, a bar patron, swore that Buckwalter didn't clobber the obnoxious Tennessee Titans fan. The poor fellow simply toppled over in a drunken stupor, banging his head.

  The team's security consultant-nice name for a bag man-had paid the witness in cash, insulating Bobby from criminal responsibility, but not from corruption of his soul.

  Thinking about it now, stewing in the juices of his self-loathing, Bobby knew he was trapped. Owing Martin Kingsley so much, how could he stand up to him?

  Attack his father-in-law's character? Hell, Kingsley wasn't a bad man, at least not by robber baron standards. He had clawed his way into money and power and used both to buy a big kid's toy, the Mustangs. He adored his daughter and grandson and blessed his son-in-law with a dream job.

  So what am I complaining about? Why not just do what I'm told? Everybody compromises, right?

  Bobby spotted his wife, Christine, slipping out a rear door of her father's sprawling house, headed his way with a pitcher of pale-green margaritas. The house was a constructed of cross-hatched logs and was intended to look both historic and western, but in fact, was designed by a Boston architect and built in the 1990's for six million dollars. The fireplace was made of multi-colored river rock and was large enough for a man to step into the open hearth without stooping, large enough to consume an ungrateful son-in-law, Bobby figured.

  She offered to refill his glass, and he didn't say no. On this cool day, with the tangy scent of pine trees mixing with pungent mesquite smoke, she wore a Dallas warm-up suit and running shoes. Holiday attire gave way to more practical outdoor wear in the Kingsley household, especially with the touch football game to come before dinner. "You've been so quiet all day," she said, sounding worried, "and now you look depressed."

  "My job has no social utility," he blurted out, surprising both of them.

  "Would you rather still be in the P.D.'s office, defending penniless criminals?"

  "Penniless criminals, wealthy criminals," he said. "What's the difference?"

  Christine ran a hand through her blond hair, which was pulled straight back and revealed a widow's peak and smooth, high forehead. Her eyes were greenish gold, cloudless as a spring day, and crinkled with laugh lines. Her lips were delicate, peach toned, and expressive. He thought she was even more lovely at thirty-six than a dozen years earlier when they met.

  Christine, you could have done better. You could have snagged a man who was smarter, richer, better looking. And honest. How do I even merit such a woman?

  Bobby stood an even six feet, had shaggy brown hair and deep brown eyes. Women did not run from the sight of him, but they didn't exactly throw their thongs at him, either. At thirty-nine, his stomach was starting to turn soft from too many cocktail parties and too little racquetball. Bobby always saw himself as not bad looking, not a bad lawyer, and not a bad guy.

  I define my life by the absence of negatives while Christine is the epitome of superlatives.

  She was competent at everything she tried. Phi Beta Kappa in college and a track star, too. Running cross country might have given her some of that calm confidence, that steadiness and stamina, Bobby thought.

  He could not imagine life without her.

  Christine ran the Mustangs' marketing department with smooth efficiency, helped their son Scott with his Latin homework, routinely beat Bobby at tennis, and also found time to run the Kingsley Center, a shelter for abused women.
Bobby never knew anyone who juggled so many flaming batons each day and then looked high-society gorgeous in a slithery cocktail dress at night.

  "You're having a mid-life crisis." Her voice soothing, her eyes compassionate. "I didn't expect it for a few years, but we'll just deal with it now."

  No crisis too challenging great for the great problem solver.

  He took a hit on the drink, hoping the liquor would melt his pent-up frustrations. "Chrissy, I don't know how to deal with it, because I'm trapped. If I quit and go into private practice, I'd be starting from scratch."

  Below them, down a set of flagstone steps from the patio, Martin Kingsley, minus his chef's hat, was barking orders at workers who were finishing the yard lines on the perfectly groomed football grass. Irrigated and fertilized, the field was a re-creation of Mustangs Stadium except the logo in the end zone here said, "Kingsley's Mustangs." Children clung to footballs and chirped happily, running and turning somersaults on the soft grass. Bobby caught sight of their eleven-year-old son Scott tossing a ball with the children of the assistant coaches. Adjacent to the field, team executives in shorts and running shoes mingled with players near the portable bars, working up their courage for the game.

  "It's so hard for me to relate because I love my job," Christine said.

  Another difference, Bobby thought. You love your father, too.

  "But if that's what you want to do, Bobby — start over — I'll understand."

  "I knew you would."

  "Hey, Ro-ber-to!" Bobby looked up to see Craig Stringer, the veteran Dallas quarterback with the TV anchorman smile. "You gonna warm up your throwing arm?"

  "That's what I'm doing," Bobby replied, hoisting his glass.

  "Better be on your game, because the MVP gets to kiss the boss' beautiful daughter."

  Stringer gave Christine his best crinkly eyed, pearly grin, and Bobby indulged in the pleasurable vision of an opposing linebacker crushing the QB's throat with a forearm shot. Stringer thought he was so irresistible he could get away with anything, including sleeping with half the Mustangs' Cheerleader squad, and telling every Shari, Sandi, and Sunny that she was the only one. Or, in Stringer's Georgia drawl, "the onliest one, ah swear."

  "Craig, you're an outrageous flirt," Christine said.

  "I'm the quarterback," Stringer tipped his ball cap to the lady and ambled off.

  "I don't like the way he's always sniffing around after you," Bobby said.

  Christine laughed, and a smile rippled across her face like a breeze across a lake. "Oh, Bobby, I think you're jealous!"

  They both watched as Stinger ran the cocktail party version of a slant route, cutting sharply across the field directly toward cheerleader captain Shari Blossom, who was standing at the bar.

  A trio of Mexican guitarists strolled by in full mariachi costume. They were playing "Besame Mucho," in which a lover begs to be kissed.

  "Do you want to talk more about it, Bobby? Your job."

  He itched to tell her the truth about Buckwalter Washington and all the other players he'd gotten out of trouble by breaking the rules. He wanted to confess he'd used the law, money, and her father's influence to become everything he hated about sleazy lawyers.

  But what would she think of me? She has a blind spot to the old bastard's failings, but would she be as forgiving of mine?

  "It's hard to explain," he said.

  "Do you want me to talk to Daddy?"

  "No!"

  He said it too harshly, and Christine eyed him warily. In a dozen years, they almost never raised their voices to each other. "I'm sorry, Chrissy, but I have to fight my own battles. I'm going to do it. I'm going to tell him we've got to clean up the franchise, do things the right way."

  "Okay, but be diplomatic. Don't butt heads with him."

  "I won't," Bobby said. "His head is a lot harder than mine."

  2

  Man as Beast

  Poor Bobby, Christine thought. He didn't understand business. He didn't understand what it took for a man like her father to build from the ground up. Sometimes, she felt she had to mother Bobby even more than their son Lovable as a floppy-eared puppy, her husband was a grown man who still needed protection from the world.

  And from Daddy.

  Daddy mistook Bobby's decency for weakness, and Bobby considered Daddy's ambition to be rapacious greed. Both men were far more complicated, she knew, and both had extraordinary qualities.

  How can I make peace between them?

  Lately she'd been charting Bobby's moods like a meteorologist watching tropical storms. Something was bothering him, and he wasn't talking.

  She headed down the flagstone steps to the field where the guests dipped corn chips into smoked tomato salsa and nibbled pickled jalapenos while sloshing icy rivers of margaritas. Her co-workers greeted her with a dozen "Howdys," and "Hidys," as she glided by, avoiding the cocktail party chatter about the big win over the Eagles yesterday. Several players and their wives stopped her momentarily to wish Happy Thanksgiving. White-uniformed waiters skated by with platters of hor d'oeuvres. Inside a huge tent of Dallas silver and blue, other servers were preparing tables for the coming feast. Christine approached the tent, heard a commotion inside, and stopped in the open entranceway.

  What she saw froze her. Nightlife Jackson, the team's All-Pro wide receiver, was angrily shouting at a young woman, wagging a finger under her nose. Her face twisted in terror, the woman lurched backward — one step, two steps, three shaky steps — but he pressed forward, staying in her grill. Staying in her face, screaming. "Fuck you want, woman! Fuck you want!"

  Nightlife's dark round, cherubic face usually was composed in a playful smile, but now, unaware of Christine's presence, he was snarling, the veins on his neck thick as cables and throbbing with every heartbeat.

  "I don't want you! I'm goin' home."

  Christine recognized the woman as Nightlife's girlfriend, a flight attendant named Shaina.

  "You ain't going nowhere, bitch!" Nightlife yelled.

  "I'm goin' home and don't bother callin'!"

  She turned and Nightlife grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around, his biceps straining against the sleeve of his silver Mustangs t-shirt. "Give me those car keys, 'ho!"

  "Lemme go!"

  Changing tactics, he lowered his voice to a seductive whisper. "C'mon now, sweet meat. Do what Daddy says."

  He tried to pry open her hand, but she resisted, screaming as Nightlife bent a finger backward.

  "Wilbur!" Christine shouted, using Nightlife's given name and moving toward him. "Let her go!"

  Nightlife spun around, startled. "This don't concern you, Ms. Gallagher. Me and Shaina's just jaw jacking. It ain't nothing."

  "Help me! He's breaking my bones!" Shaina yelled, her voice keening into a high-pitched wail, her beaded corn rows flailing as she tossed her head. Her eye make-up was streaked over her cheeks tinging her cinnamon skin a sooty charcoal.

  "Shut up, Miss Thang!" Nightlife yelled.

  "Let her go!" Christine ordered.

  "Bitch shamed me in front of the team, and she's-"

  "His whore's here!" Shaina bawled. "He had Tyrone Wheatley bring her, but I know Nightlife's doing her when I'm off flying."

  "Don't be stupid!" Nightlife hollered.

  "You're stupid!" she screamed back. "You're so stupid you leave your fly open just to count to eleven."

  She tried to twist away but Nightlife grabbed her arm and yanked it behind her back, then wrenched hard, pressing the back of her hand against her shoulder blade.

  "Ow!"

  "Give me those car keys!"

  Christine moved closer. "You do not lift a hand to a woman, Wilbur Jackson. You do not hurt a woman, ever!"

  Nightlife turned to Christine, his eyes flaring with such fury that she staggered back a step on wobbly legs.

  "The fuck you doing, woman! This ain't your fight!"

  "If you don't let her go right now, I'll have my father suspend you.

  "F
uck that! I'm your meal ticket, rich girl and this 'ho ain't nothing."

  Nightlife's face was a searing mask of violence. For a moment, Christine was sure he would hit her. Her vision blurred, and his features mutated into something barely human. He became a horned beast, a goat-man, and then finally something else altogether. Something — someone — from her past. As Nightlife balled his fist and glared at her with eyes as hard as steel spikes, she saw the face that still haunted her nightmares. She girded herself and chased away the memory.

  "Don't be a fool, Wilbur. I can end your career."

  "The fuck you can, woman. You're just the team bling and don't even know it."

  "Try me."

  With a look of utter disgust, he released Shaina and turned to leave. "Shee-it, you women stick together like flies on shit."

  Christine put her arms around the young woman and let her sob. "He's not worth the tears, Shaina," Christine told her, remembering her own past, "but someday you'll find someone who is."

  3

  Daddy

  Christine was late for the game because she had stopped to see her father in his macho den. It was a place of dark leather sofas and tobacco humidors, red Mexican tile floors with Navajo rugs, rough-hewn knotty pine walls mounted with crossed swords and rifles used in the defense of the Alamo. On the wall behind her father's desk, the head of a wild boar, fangs exposed, greeted her with a macabre smile.

  She found her father standing at a reading table. He was a ramrod straight Marlboro man who looked younger than his sixty-seven years. He stood six feet-three-taller in his ostrich cowboy boots-and was a fit, rangy one hundred ninety-five pounds. His skin was a leathery parchment from too much West Texas sun in his youth, and his deeply set blue eyes looked out from under bushy white eyebrows. He had let his trademark long hair go silvery white, sweeping up at the neckline. He did not discourage sports writers who compared his looks-and actions-to Buffalo Bill Cody.