Sudden Death Read online

  “This reminds me of a cartoon."

  “What?”

  “I said, this reminds me of. . . " The band ceased playing, making shouting almost unnecessary. “. . . a cartoon.”

  “Which cartoon would that be?” Father Robert Koesler leaned toward his friend and onetime classmate, Father Patrick McNiff.

  “I can’t remember where I saw it,” said McNiff. “It was years ago. But it showed a couple of women sitting in the very top row of a stadium. Down on the floor of the stadium were a bunch of dots that represented football players. And one woman was saying to the other, ‘Their shoulders are really falsies.’”

  Koesler grinned. He and McNiff were part of a sellout crowd watching a football game between the Pontiac Cougars and the Chicago Towers in Pontiac’s Metropolitan Stadium, sometimes called PonMet, more frequently the Silverdome. By those attempting to enter or exit the parking lot, it was frequently called names never found in a family newspaper.

  In any case, it was billed as the World’s Largest Domed Stadium. Koesler and McNiff were seated in the next to the last row on the upper level.

  “Couldn’t you get anything higher than this?” McNiff's sarcasm was evident.

  “Pat, what you don’t understand is that these are among the best seats in the house.”

  McNiff snorted.

  “No, really,” Koesler insisted. “Wait till play starts again. From this vantage, you can see the pass patterns and the defensive alignments. It’s like watching all the Xs and Os on a coach’s blackboard, only they’re alive. It’s really an exciting place to watch a game from.”

  “You’re telling me that we’ve got the ‘overall picture’?” The PA was blaring; McNiff was forced to raise his voice. “Is that in any way like the ‘overall picture’ of the Archdiocese of Detroit that Cardinal Boyle keeps telling us he is the sole possessor of?”

  “A kissing cousin. Good grief, that PA is deafening! It’s a wonder the players can hear themselves think!"

  Hank Hunsinger, the Cougars’ tight end, stood toweling the back of his neck during the commercial timeout. He could hear clearly the taunts, threats, and imprecations being directed at him by several of Chicago’s defensive team. Through some acoustic anomaly, the public-address system did not affect the noise level at the playing surface nearly as much as did the racket made by the crowd as the teams approached the scrimmage line and throughout each play.

  The Towers’ defensive team roundly hated Hank (“the Hun”) Hunsinger. In that, they were joined by every other defensive team in the league. In one of the most violent games ever devised by civilized mankind, Hunsinger was notorious for his dirty play. If there was an unfair advantage to be taken, he took it. Always. If there was an opportunity to hurt an opponent, he hurt him. He was notorious in the league as a cheap-shot artist.

  Hunsinger didn’t care. He had not entered a popularity contest. Getting his job done, by whatever means, was his aim.

  That he did get his job done was duly noted by his teammates. The Cougars, even if they did not much favor his methods, respected his skill and experience.

  Again, Hunsinger did not care.

  The referee blew his whistle and pumped his right arm, signaling the thirty-second period during which the offensive team must begin play.

  The team’s center stationed himself some ten yards behind the line of scrimmage, raised his arm, and cried, “Huddah!” Which was as close as he would come to “Huddle.”

  The players formed an uneven oval, with the team’s center as its focal point. The last to enter the oval, and the only one lowering himself to one knee, was the quarterback. Bobby Cobb was black. Notable only because, although blacks outnumber whites on most pro football teams, it is rare for one to be quarterback.

  As he knelt within the oval, Cobb was singing softly, “We shall overcome.” Such was his style.

  In addition to being an extremely violent game, professional football had become one of the most stressful of competitions. Split-second decisions were now the order of the day. Decisions whose outcome would involve, eventually, millions of dollars—in advertising revenue, gate receipts, concession income, television revenue, bets, and, finally, the value of the franchise.

  Of all the decisions made on the playing field, none was of greater significance than the quarterback’s. Bobby Cobb’s reaction to all of this was a studied nonchalance. He was good at what he did. He knew it. He intended that his attitude of relaxed confidence be contagious. Usually it was.

  “ ‘. . . Deep in my heart, I do believe, we shall overcome someday.’ Well, gentlemen, let’s eat ’em up. Or, as the experts in the booth like to say, We’re going to continue to establish our running game.” His tone became businesslike. “Blue! Right! Thirty-six! Let’s see some daylight! On two! Break!”

  With a communal clap of hands, the team ambled deliberately to its offensive position. The play called for the fullback to run through a hole cleared by the right tackle and the tight end, who, on this play, would align himself as the final lineman on the right side.

  As Hunsinger lowered himself to a three-point stance, he gave neither thought nor care to anyone’s assignment but his. He was to block the strong-side linebacker. Then, as the running back passed that spot, Hunsinger was to proceed downfield to take out the strong safety. For the moment, his attention was riveted on the linebacker, his first target.

  The crowd noise swelled. The spectators in the coliseum were eager to see the gladiators do battle. Bobby Cobb would shout the play again—or change it—first calling to the right, then to the left, to make sure all heard it correctly.

  “Set! Two—thirty-six! Two—thirty-six!

  “Hut! Hut!”

  The ball was snapped. Plastic shoulder guards popped; players grunted, yelled, and cursed; padded arms were flung out as weapons; huge bodies launched into each other. One side would win this isolated moment of combat, the other would not; that’s the way it always went. For even if there was no advance, that was a victory for the defensive team.

  It was a rookie-type blunder. Hunsinger knew it the instant he made contact. He had charged off the line of scrimmage and cut sharply to his right, eyes fixed on the numerals on the linebacker’s jersey. The initial contact was solid. For good measure, Hunsinger thrust his helmet at the linebacker’s chin. Butting an opponent was legal but extremely dangerous. The possible injury to his opponent did not trouble Hunsinger.

  But a split second after contact, he realized his feet were not properly placed. They were too close together to provide a solid base. Simultaneously, the linebacker, sensing Hunsinger’s mistake, stepped aside and, grasping the Hun’s jersey, threw him to the turf like an oversize ragdoll.

  Having disposed of the blocker, the linebacker tackled the ball carrier.

  A one-yard gain. Second down, nine to go. No one in the stands doubted whose blunder it was.

  In the TV booth, the announcer was informing those at home with the aid of instant replay that “old number 89 really blew that one. And cost his team some valuable yardage.”

  “Nice block, Hun,” the linebacker gloated over his shoulder. “Best goddam shot I’ve ever seen you throw."

  Hunsinger picked himself off the Astroturf, one part of him registering the boos that were cascading upon him from the fans, and returned to where the center’s “Huddah!” again summoned. In the huddle, the fullback, who, unprotected, had been hit hard, glanced balefully at Hunsinger, who continued to stare at the ground. Inwardly, the Hun was seething.

  Cobb slid into the huddle on one knee. He had received the next play from the coach through a substitute. “Gentlemen, neither I nor the bench is satisfied that we are establishing our running game. So we’ll try again. Slot! Right! Forty-six! Think you can take the ’backer this time, Hun?” Rhetorical sarcasm. “On three! Break!”

  Hunsinger assumed the three-point stance, his mind once again centered on the strong-side linebacker, the same player who had just humiliated him. It would be different this time: His opponent would pay for his small victory.

  But first, Hunsinger had to be certain that there would be no unexpected defensive formation that would force Cobb to call an audible—changing the play at the line of scrimmage.

  “Set!” Cobb shouted to the right. “Three—forty-six!”

  It was the agreed snap count. The play would be the one called in the huddle. Now that bastard would pay.

  Hunsinger was not sure in just what manner payment would be exacted. He would rely on his vast experience in foul tactics to improvise something appropriate.

  “Three-forty-six!” Cobb shouted to the left. “Hut! Hut! Hut!”

  The ball was slammed into Cobb’s hands. He pivoted and pitched it out to his halfback. Twenty-two very large men again moved from a tableau into violent action, one team endeavoring to tackle the ball carrier, the other trying to block that effort and advance the carrier. In the end, that was what this game was all about, blocking and tackling.

  Again, Hunsinger sprang from his stationary position and headed for the strong-side linebacker, not head-on this time, but slightly to one side. As he had hoped, the linebacker attempted to “swim” by the block. Swinging his right arm in a wide, over-the-head arc, he tried to brush past Hunsinger, pushing the tight end’s right shoulder back, much as a swimmer cuts through the water.

  Perfect. Hunsinger had maneuvered himself and his opponent so that no game official would have an unobstructed view of his actions.

  The linebacker’s upraised right arm left his entire r
ight side exposed and unprotected. Even with all the padding players wear, ordinarily there is no protection for the chest area.

  Hunsinger planted his right foot and drove his fist into the linebacker’s upper diaphragm. The punch didn’t travel far. It didn’t need to. Indeed, it could not have, else the officials likely would have spotted the foul. But Hunsinger was a powerful man; as his punch buried itself in the linebacker, the Hun thought he felt the man’s rib snap. He clearly heard the sharp expulsion of air as the linebacker collapsed and rolled over in agony.

  Whistles sounded. The play was over.

  Hunsinger looked around. There was a pileup some fifteen yards upfield. The play had worked. He checked for penalty markers. Apparently no foul had been detected. The field markers were being moved upfield. The men carrying the sticks wouldn’t be moving them if the head linesman hadn’t beckoned them. And he wouldn’t have signaled them if there’d been a foul called.

  Perfect. Hunsinger moved to join his teammates.

  By now players, coaches, and fans were aware that only twenty-one players were up and about. The injured linebacker had curled into a fetal position. Several teammates hurried to his side, peered at him, but didn’t touch him. The trainer and an assistant ran across the field. They managed to move him onto his back. He could be seen now by the fans and TV viewers only from the waist down. He was not moving his legs to and fro in pain. He was not moving at all.

  The fans were hushed. Many relished the violence of this game, but most shrank from the sight of serious injury.

  Even the TV commentators had missed Hunsinger’s blow. Nor had any isolated camera recorded the action. The TV people spent this official timeout running and rerunning the play as it was recorded on instant replay. Each time the halfback carrying the ball passed the point of the collision in question, one of them would call out excitedly, “There . . . there, see? You can see the linebacker go down, but the camera got there too late to catch the block that flattened him.” Then the film would be played backward and the linebacker would miraculously rise from the turf.

  No one on either team had seen what happened. The Cougars simply assumed that it had been one of those unfortunate accidents that happen when two strong people run into each other. Not that some of Hunsinger’s teammates did not harbor some suspicions, given his well-deserved reputation.

  The Chicago team, on the other hand, took it for granted that there had been a deliberate foul. Most of the Towers loudly cursed Hunsinger.

  Few fans could hear the curses. By now, the linebacker had been taken from the field on a stretcher, to the fans’ sympathetic and commendatory cheers. And the band was blasting over the superloud public-address system.

  For his part, Hunsinger noticed that one of his shoelaces was twisted. He bent down to straighten it. He was oblivious to the threats and curses being hurled at him from across the scrimmage line.

  “Hun, you bastard, you’re gonna pay for that!” The Towers’ middle linebacker was a formidable specimen.

  Hunsinger did not hear him. Nor did he notice that several of the linebacker’s teammates were physically restraining him from instant delivery on that threat.

  The referee’s whistle sounded. The Cougars had thirty seconds in which to get a play under way.

  “Huddah!”

  Bobby Cobb slid into the huddle. “It seems that everyone is convinced that our ground game is at least good enough so’s we can risk a pass. Red! Left! Seventy-three! Hun, give me a sharp post pattern. On three! Break!”

  Hunsinger lined up on the left side of the five interior linemen. The plan was for him to delay a few moments at the scrimmage line, blocking as Cobb retreated to set up for the pass. Then, after the two wide receivers, X and Z, had begun their patterns, designed to clear the middle zone, the tight end, Y, would cut sharply across the middle into the clear.

  “Set! Three—seventy-three! Three—seventy-three! Hut! Hut! Hut!”

  Hunsinger retreated the prescribed couple of yards, both legs pumping to give him balance as he helped his neighbor, the left tackle, block. Suddenly, he slid off the block and charged several yards upfield. Then, he broke sharply and diagonally across the center.

  Cobb, under considerable pressure from charging Chicago linemen, at the last possible second caught sight of Hunsinger’s maneuver and fired the ball at a spot where he hoped Hunsinger would be in another second. Cobb was then slammed to the turf by one of the Towers who finally broke through the block.

  Under his breath, Hunsinger cursed. The ball would be high and away from him. Instinctively, he tried for it. A pass receiver was paid for catching the ball, not for missing it, and certainly not for refusing to try. Hunsinger liked being paid. A lot.

  He leaped as far and as high as he could. He was able just to tip the tightly spiraled pass and somehow bring it under control with the fingers of his left hand. Quickly, he gathered the ball into both hands, and tucked it tightly to his chest.

  He knew there was no way he could land on his feet. Nor was he surprised when he was bent like a bow by a brutal tackle from the rear. He was, though, surprised and not a little shocked to suffer sharp, repeated blows to the small of his back after landing on the turf.

  “You goddamn Hun!” The Towers’ middle linebacker repeated the imprecation over and over as he made a punching bag of Hunsinger.

  Whistles came from every corner of the field. Yellow penalty flags fluttered to earth. The deafening cheers that had greeted Hunsinger’s remarkable reception were transformed into choruses of boos directed at the Chicago player.

  Officials pulled the linebacker away. The referee escorted him to the sidelines, where his coach was informed of his official ejection from the game.

  With assistance from the trainer and a couple of teammates, Hunsinger slowly got to his feet. As he was assisted from the field, the volume of cheers exceeded that which had greeted his catch.

  “Look at that! Did you see that? That bastard oughta be thrown out of football. The commissioner is going to hear from me tomorrow!” Jay Galloway, the Cougars’ owner, was furious.

  He was in the owner’s box, his face almost pressed against the pane of the permanently sealed window that gave a panoramic view of the stadium. In the booth with him were his wife, Marjorie; the team’s general manager, Dave Whitman; his wife, Kate; and several of Michigan’s movers and shakers.

  A subtle smile played at Marjorie Galloway’s lips. The smile had been there from the moment of Hunsinger’s injury. She hid it by cupping a hand over her mouth, as if in horror or concern.

  “Somebody do that to a dog anywhere in town and the cops’d have the guy in jail before he knew what hit him. That’s a million-dollar property that bastard was pounding on!” Galloway lit another Camel. His previous cigarette was only half smoked. He noticed it when he placed the newly lit cigarette in the ashtray. He snuffed the smaller butt.

  Dave Whitman noticed the double-cigarette incident. From long association with Galloway, Whitman recognized the signs. Ordinarily a decent fellow, Galloway could and frequently did present a Mr. Hyde side when it came to his team.

  A big part of the problem was that Galloway’s team was also his bread and butter. Unlike owners of other pro football franchises, Galloway was not enormously wealthy from independent enterprises. Every nickel he paid in rentals, advertising, salaries came out of his pocket. That alone made him one of the testiest owners with whom to do business.

  It had been a near miracle that he’d been able to secure this franchise. He had put together a consortium of wealthy local merchants and businessmen, convincing them that they would find both himself and the franchise profitable investments. Both of which had proved true. Then, one by one, he had bought them out until now he was sole owner.

  But the crown rested uneasily on his head. Now there was no one to fall back upon. From time to time, frankly, it frightened him. But he held on to his expensive trinket. Among the goals Galloway set for himself, his ultimate goal was to be Somebody. The Cougars were his vehicle toward that goal.

  Basically, Galloway was an insecure man. And insecure people can be trouble.

  It was typical of him to think of one of his players as a property. To Galloway, the players, trainers, and coaches represented investments and expenditures. And Hunsinger was one of his most expensive investments. Hunsinger’s salary was second only to Bobby Cobb’s.