Now, as the bundled multitudes stood shouting, exhorting Green Bay, he stomped his feet, trying to restore circulation. The cherished home team was chewing up yardage but was out of timeouts with a minute forty seconds remaining.
For Green Bay, the game clock ticked unmercifully fast, the sand pouring, not trickling, from the hourglass. A pass brought the ball into Dallas territory, but the receiver failed to get out of bounds, and precious seconds ran off the clock, draining the team of its blood, drop by drop. An incompletion and then another short gain on a sideline pass, and the clock stopped with thirty-nine seconds left. Another incompletion, a pass for a first-down, and then a pass deflected for an incompletion. Fifteen seconds remaining with the ball on the Cowboy forty-one yard line, too far for a field goal, and still a point behind.
On the next play, with all his receivers covered, Joe Curry, the Packer quarterback scrambled out of the pocket and scurried down the field, an inelegant runner picking his way through fallen bodies, stiff-arming a linebacker, hip-faking a safety, finding a path down the sideline, finally lunging out of bounds at the Cowboy twelve, stopping the clock dead with four seconds left.
The crowd erupted with hoarse cheers. Green Bay hurried its field goal unit onto the field for what should be the winning kick. Though pandemonium raged around him, to Bobby, it didn't matter. Whether the kick succeeded or failed, LaBarca would win one bet and lose the other. Whether Dallas lost 16–14 or won 14–13, Bobby figured to make his $60,000 in vigorish on LaBarca's losing bet. It would be Bobby's largest score ever, and it would take him out of the hole. He'd pay Scott's tuition. He'd get on his feet.
Green Bay's field goal unit lined up for what should be the winning kick, a 29-yard chip shot. He recalled his own days as a holder, remembering blowing into his cupped hands to keep warm on a road game at Boston College. Before Green Bay snapped the ball, Dallas called time out, an old ruse that seldom worked. They were trying to freeze the kicker. A fitting term, given the weather, Bobby thought. The idea is to rattle the little guy by making him think about the magnitude of his undertaking. Meanwhile, the folks at home are urged to buy beer and the folks in the stadium are fighting off frostbite.
While he waited, Bobby pulled out his cellular and dialed a number. When he heard a familiar, raspy voice at the other end, he said, "Hey Cantor! How's the weather down there? It's beautiful up here. Too bad for you didn't book the bet."
19
Martin Kingsley chewed on the ice in his gin and tonic. Earlier in the game, his mind had drifted. He had thought of the scarred and dangerous Houston Tyler. His extortion. His threats. The five million, chicken feed when you're flush, an impossible amount of cash when you've pledged everything to the friggin' banks that have cut off your credit.
But now, Kingsley's only concern was football. His suit coat was off and his sleeves rolled up. The skybox was overheated, and he felt feverish. All he had worked for, all the dough he had spent on rookie bonuses and veterans' multi-year packages, on egomaniacal free agents and scouts and nutritionists and weightlifting trainers and even a damn ballet master to teach the D-backs body control, all the boasts about bringing the Lombardi Trophy to Dallas, were about to go down the drain. When the timeout ended, that hundred-sixty-five pound piss-ant soccer player from Colombia would send the Mustangs back home and take his own team to the Big Dance with one scythe-like swing of his leg.
"We gotta block that kick," he muttered under his breath.
"There's a gap between the center and the right guard," Scott said, peering through binoculars. "I saw it on the two field goals they kicked earlier."
"What?"
"Dad knows everything about the kicking game. He taught me to watch how the linemen interlock their legs on the kicks when they come up out of their three-point stance. That's how they form a protective shield in front of the holder. But the Green Bay center is slow getting back. His right leg never locks with the guard's left leg."
Kingsley grabbed the phone before Scott had finished talking. The line went directly to the bench where Frank Morrow, the director of game day operations, wore a headset for the singular purpose of fielding his boss' calls. Sometimes, the phone wouldn't ring the entire game. Sometimes, there would be an innocuous order that the defensive linemen tuck their jerseys inside their pants. Other times, Morrow would have the unhappy task of carrying a message from owner to coach. "Mr. K would like you to run the end-around with Jackson." Coach Chet Krause would curse, spit, and then run the play.
Now, Kingsley ordered the middle overloaded just off the center's right shoulder, the Banzai middle formation. As the teams lined up for the kick, Kingsley raised his binoculars. Focusing on the center of the Mustangs' defensive line, he gave his last order of that day, this one muttered softly, but directed from Olympian heights to his eleven employees, pawing at the frozen earth like angry stags. "Block that son-of-a-bitch, you overpaid bastards!" he demanded.
Make it, Bobby urged, under his breath. Though the kick wouldn't affect his bet, he wanted Dallas to lose. Let Kingsley wallow in utter despair. Let him know how it feels. The old man put all his cash and whatever heart he had into the team. Making it to the Super Bowl-and winning it-was his number one priority. To be stopped a game short would be unbearable agony.
Bobby would be sorry for Scott, though. The kid told him he'd be rooting for the Mustangs to win by less than seven, a result that would make both grandfather and father happy. That was just like Scott, always looking out for everyone else, trying to achieve peace through compromise.
Please block the kick, Christine Gallagher prayed. She gripped Scott's hand and watched him biting his lower lip, totally engrossed in the game. She'd spent much of the day studying her son. Three weeks since she'd seen him, and he looked an inch taller. The older he became, the more he resembled Bobby, and not just his looks. They had the same gait, the same sense of humor, the same pauses between certain words. When Scott asked her a question and cocked his head waiting for an answer, she could swear it was Bobby. Her ex-husband would always be with her, she thought, one way or another.
What was it about him, anyway? Why did she still have feelings for her ex? Chemistry, she supposed. She'd read in one of the women's magazines that we each have a subconscious sense of smell, and we're drawn to others who have the scent we lack. Whatever it was, all the senses worked with Bobby. When they fell in love, they laughed and played and shared everything, including a finely honed notion that the world was their amusement park. How did it go so wrong?
If Bobby hadn't gone to work for her father, maybe it could have been different. But Bobby's self-indulgent kamikaze act was unforgivable. Her father's investigators told her that now he was involved in illegal gambling. She'd be forced to use the information against him in the court case that would determine where Scott would go to school and who would be the primary custodian. She did not look forward to the hearing, but she intended to do whatever it took to win. It was a lesson learned from her father.
She wanted Scott to take advantage of his natural aptitude for mathematics. Sure, she'd miss him desperately, but the boarding school in Massachusetts offered advantages not available in either Miami or Dallas. They had Harvard professors, for crying out loud! Someday, Scott would thank her. So would Bobby. Another one of Daddy's lessons: grit your teeth and do what you know is best.