Paydirt

39

Christine did not sit down. Instead, she walked closer to the desk, hardly believing this was the man she had known nearly all her life. When she was a small child, she thought he was a member of the family. The Tylers were constant guests in the Kingsley home. Her mother played golf with Corrine, and the two men were partners for nearly 20 years until the Texas City refinery fire tore them apart and sent Houston Tyler off to prison.

Her memories of her father's partner were strange and conflicting. There was the broad-shouldered man who laughed uproariously and gave her piggy-back rides in the swimming pool. There was the profane, hard-drinking man who cursed her father in language she'd never before heard. And there was the weeping man who comforted her after her mother died.

But the man sitting in front of her was none of those. His head was shaved and loose folds of skin hung from his goose-slim neck. His skin was the color of warm milk, and when he smiled, a purple scar that ran from cheekbone to scalp slid into the folds of his face. His left eye was chalky white and seemed to look in an entirely different direction than the right. She felt herself staring at his scar.

"Guess I don't look too pretty," he said.

"It isn't that. I just never expected to see you in my father's room. What are you doing here, Mr. Tyler?"

"Hell, Christine, you can call me Ty. You used to call me Uncle Ty, remember?"

"Does my father know you're here?"

"Hell no, and he wouldn't like it one bit. Your old man would like to see me dead."

"I'm sure that's not true. He was very sorry about what happened to you."

Tyler growled his disagreement, the sound of water gurgling down a pipe. "I'll say this for your Daddy, though. He was always a good record keeper. Me, hell I never wrote a memo in my life. Hated meetings and business lunches. I'd just tromp around in the fields and find the oil so your Daddy could dicker over mineral rights and sew up the deals that would make us rich. Or at least make one of us rich."

"Mr. Tyler, what's going on?"

"Here, look at this," he said, holding up a file folder. "Your Daddy carries around some interesting reading material in his briefcase. Player contracts under negotiation, loan extensions, licensing agreements, and then there's-"

"You have no right to be going through his things." She closed the distance between them and snatched the file away. On top was a legal document with "Escrow Agreement" written in fancy script. She hadn't seen it before and had no intention of reading it, but the "party of the second part" caught her attention.

Robert C. Gallagher.

The "party of the first part" was her father.

The escrow agent was her father's bank.

The subject of the escrow was two per cent of the stock in the Dallas Mustangs.

What in the world!

"You still wrinkle your forehead when you're thinking just like you did when you were a little girl," Tyler said. "Well, what do you think about all that legalese? I ain't no Philadelphia lawyer or even a Corpus Christi lawyer, but it seems to me your father's bet the farm on a football game."

Her first thought was that it was a forgery, an elaborate fake. Maybe Houston Tyler brought the document here. Maybe he was setting Daddy up. But she recognized both signatures. What had Bobby told the night he was beaten up at the party?

"Your father doesn't care what you want! He doesn't care what Scott wants! He's a megalomaniac who wants to control everyone around him. He's immoral and corrupt! He's even betting on the Super Bowl."

She had laughed at him and asked how Bobby would know.

"Because the bet is with me! It's for five million dollars."

She had called him a liar. Dismissed everything he had said about her father and Craig. She'd been such a fool. For the second time today, she felt betrayed. First by her fiance, then by her father. Her throat was constricted, her windpipe tightening up. Her limbs felt stiff and brittle, as if they might shatter like the stems of wineglasses.

"Looks like your Daddy's fixing to win himself five million dollars," Tyler said.

"I don't know anything about it." She wondered what other secrets Daddy and Craig shared,

Oh Bobby, I need you now!

"I'm glad to see that Martin's getting creative, seeing how he owes me the five million dollars that's in the pot. I just wonder what that old fox is gonna due if he loses."