Bowl credentials hung around her neck, competing for space with a simple strand of white pearls. He grabbed her by the elbow and guided her toward an editing booth.
'Don't pull me,' she said, twisting out of his grasp. 'What's your big hurry?'
'You've got to see this now. Our future depends on it.'
'Our future is in the past,' she said.
'I refuse to lose you to that phony, Bible-quoting bull slinger.'
'You lost me all by yourself with no help from Craig or anyone else.'
Bobby refused to let her resistance discourage him. He guided her into a small editing booth with two monitors and a control panel with a jumble of wires. He popped a video cassette into a slot, pushed a button and waited. A sizzle of static criss-crossed on of the monitors, which then went to black and then color bars. Then Murray Kravetz' TV baritone could be heard in a whisper. 'The place, a balcony of the Fontainebleau, the date, February 2, the event, the Super Bowl of Fornication. Now, let's get up close and personal with our contestants.'
'Bobby, what is this?' Christine protested. 'Did you drag me in here to see some stupid porno film?'
In that moment, the screen came to life with a blurry creaminess. A second later, a woman's naked body was visible from the waist down.
'That's Shari Blossom,' Bobby said.
'Really?' Christine asked, archly. 'How would you know?'
'Aha,' Kravetz whispered on the tape as Shari's tapered blonde bush filled the screen. 'Now here's a commercial for Gillette that could really sell some shaving cream.'
'Bobby, this is disgusting!' Christine said. 'You're acting like a college sophomore.'
'Hold on. This is important.'
'Why? How?'
'As we say in the law, 'I'll tie it up, Your Honor.''
The audio track rumbled as Shari opened the sliding glass door to the balcony. 'There we are hon,' she cooed to someone in the room. 'Just feel that salt air. Ain't it refreshing?'
She turned and twirled her pink headband around her hand, directly in front of the camera, then headed toward the bed, pausing a second to give a little butt wiggle.
'Oh, for God's sake,' Christine muttered.
Okay, okay, so Shari isn't Meryl Streep.
A man's bare legs flashed across the screen in the background, then disappeared. 'Shari, turn out the lights,' said the faraway male voice.
'There!' Bobby shouted. 'Did you hear that?'
'Yes. So what?'
'Did you recognize the voice?'
'No.'
Bobby did, or thought he did. Of course, he knew who it was, and that made it easier. But Christine couldn't tell. Maybe the sound was too distant and was competing with the slap of shore break and noises from the pool deck bar far below the balcony.
'Aw sugar, doncha wanna see my face when I come?' Shari sang out in a little girl's voice.
'I think I'm going to be sick,' Christine said.
'Already seen it,' the man said. 'Your eyes roll back like you got a concussion from a helmet-to-helmet collision.'
'Did you hear that?' Bobby asked, excitedly. 'He's talking football.'
'So?'
'So, it's Craig Stringer!'
She let out an exasperated sigh. 'Bobby, there are eighty thousand football fans in town plus all the players. That's not Craig.'
The screen went dark and Shari's voice could be heard, but her pout only imagined. 'Oh, all right, party pooper, but I know garage mechanics from Galveston who are more romantic than you.'
After that, there were a number of sounds. Bed sheets rustling, bedsprings groaning. A feminine, 'Don't stop now!' A masculine throaty growl. A few intermixed shouts and whoopty-dos, and finally silence. Then, after a moment, with his voice rising and falling in the sing-song of a country preacher, the man called out, 'The lips of a strange woman drop as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.'
'What's that you're saying, sugar?' Shari asked.
'It's from Proverbs. Read your Bible, girl.'
'That's Stringer!' Bobby shouted. 'You know it is. It's your home-fried, holier-than-thou theology expert who thinks he's the fourth member of the Trinity.'
Christine pursed her lips, and her forehead wrinkled in thought.
C'mon Chrissy. You know I'm right.
'Proverbs or adverbs, I still don't get it,' Shari said on the tape. 'How can I be strange to you, Craig?'
'There! There it is! She called him Craig!' Bobby hit the stop button. Now he had the proof. 'Do you want to hear it again? It's Craig! Craig the country boy, Craig the preacher, Craig the quarterback, Craig the unfaithful.'
He wanted to hug Shari Blossom for coming through. He wanted to scoop Christine up in his arms and comfort her in her time of need. But most of all, he just wanted a reaction from her.
'Let me hear it again,' she said, calmly.
Does nothing perturb you? C'mon Chrissy, show some emotion.
He rewound the tape several seconds and played it again. Christine closed her eyes and listened to that voice, the voice that must have whispered endearments into her ear. What must she be feeling? Shame? Anger? Despair?
I'm here for you, Chrissy. I've always been here and I always will be.
For a moment, Bobby thought he had her. For a moment, her eyes flickered with doubt about her fiancee. But we all are capable of repressing what we fear is true, he knew. We are all capable of seeing what we want to see. Her eyes flared to life like golden tigers. 'Bobby, you're despicable! My father was right about you all along.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Do you think I can't spot a scam? I saw you with Miss Pink Headband at Media Day and then again at the press party. I don't know who you have playing the role of Craig. Maybe it's you with that god-awful impression of a Southern accent, or maybe you recruited one of your low-life friends from the race track, but it's not Craig. He wouldn't have been there. He wouldn't have done that. It isn't him.'
'Yes it is. I swear on a stack of that bastard's Bibles.'
'Tell me,' she said calmly. 'Is it possible for you to sink any lower?'
Without waiting for an answer, Christine turned and rushed out of the editing booth.
'No,' Bobby said to himself, watching her go. 'This is as low as it gets.'
'If Jesus were alive, he'd be at the Super Bowl.'
— Norman Vincent Peale
'If Jesus were a football player, he'd play fair, he'd play clean, and he'd put the guy across the line on his butt.'
— Barry Rice, former football player, Liberty University
34
Murray Kravetz claimed that his second cousin Morty was a ham radio operator with the skills of a computer hacker. 'He could jam the signals transmitted from the Dallas bench to Craig Stringer's helmet,' Kravetz said excitedly, self-consciously touching his toupee. 'Then, we send in our own plays, really screw them up, make 'em quick kick on third and long.'
