Son of a Sinner Read online

  “I thought there were no unimportant games, Coach.”

  “That’s true, but some are more important than others.”

  In went Dean’s adequate but not brilliant backup, a guy named Leon Davies at the end of his career. He’d get the only Super Bowl ring of his life if the Sinners went that far. Davies had experience and could take his lumps, but he failed to put any points on the board the entire second half while Atlanta brought in another to tie the game. His final march down the field stalled at the sixty-yard line with under a minute to go. Out came Tommy the Toe who swung his leg a few times, cool and oblivious to the noise the home fans sent up to distract him, and prepared to kick a field goal. As usual, their opponents called a time out to put the freeze on him. Tom simply did a few stretches as he waited, then got back into position, ran his three paces and booted that ball over the goalposts with maybe three inches to spare and a slight shank to the right, not his prettiest kick, but it did the job. The Sinners surged onto the field, but Dean got to his brother first with a bone-crushing man-hug. Tom said simply, “You’re welcome.”

  Both looked into the stands where the rest of their family sat, all of them on their feet, even Teddy who had pushed up on his braces. His father beamed with a pride fit to bust the buttons of his Sinners’ blazer. Their mom, who always said football wasn’t the most important thing in life, smiled and clapped. T-Rex jumped up and down undoubtedly claiming he’d do the same someday. Best of all, Stacy, wearing his ring, sat next to Xochi in her usual place—and Ilsa remained in Germany. The end of a perfect season and a not so perfect year.

  ****

  Ilsa returned shortly after the start of the New Year, and being no Dummkopf, immediately retained her own attorney, one who specialized in divorce settlements. She underwent amniocentesis with an alacrity that said she felt sure of the results and waited a week for the results. The child proved to be both Dean’s and a boy. Negotiations began. Taking care of Ilsa’s medical bills was a given, the rest not so easy. They worked on an agreement as the Sinners worked through three playoff games. At the first meeting, Stacy sat beside Dean at the wide boardroom table.

  “What is she doing here?” Ilsa asked, radiating hostility.

  “Because I want her here.” Dean had his game face on, cool and hard, strong and focused.

  Stacy doubted if Ilsa had ever seen that face before, being more accustomed to a visage of drooling lust, and it threw her off a bit. “Nice ring,” she commented to Stacy as she jingled the diamond tennis bracelet on her wrist.

  “Thank you. I like it very much.” Their engagement had not been announced, but speculation ran wild about the ring in the tabloids and more reputable magazines. Stacy didn’t plan to give Ilsa the news, but she dearly wanted to.

  Isla appeared more well-fed than usual but not obviously pregnant. Stacy wished enormous weight gain and stretch marks on her, but considering the woman’s tall frame, would most likely not get that satisfaction. All the better because the secret could be kept a little longer. The first thing Dean wanted was a non-disclosure agreement forbidding Ilsa to talk to the press.

  “How am I to make enough money while I am pregnant if I cannot tell my story?” she asked. She parlayed that into a house in the garden district with a nice living allowance.

  “To remain in my name if I’m paying for it,” Dean said.

  Stacy shook her head. “No, let her own the house because otherwise…” She didn’t need to say if he kept the house Ilsa would appear to be his mistress.

  “Okay, I get it.” Dean conceded that but wanted some of his own demands—the child to be born and raised in south Louisiana with thirty days allowed each year for him to visit his grandparents in Germany or travel abroad with his mother. Otherwise, the boy stayed at the ranch if Ilsa chose to roam without him. If she violated this, her living allowance, which might as well have been alimony, would cease. She agreed.

  The child support was liberal, but Ilsa’s lawyer tried to attach a clause having it go up whenever Dean signed a new contract. Unlike Leslie at the jewelry store, he did know sports. Dean would be a free agent at the end of the season with really big money rolling in if the Sinners wanted to retain him. Dean’s attorneys fended that off. So it went, more hard fought and stressful than the three playoff games where the Sinners rolled over the wildcard team, easily took their second game, but practically fought to the death in the third round home game that made them winners of the championship. With that, Ilsa made one more demand. She wanted and got a ticket to the Super Bowl to sit with the family.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The Seahawks it was, exactly as Tom predicted. The venue, Levi’s Field in Santa Clara, California, home of the Niners, still had its new stadium smell and all the cultural amenities the Silicon Valley could offer: fine art on the walls, a gastropub using herbs grown on the rooftop near the solar panels, and food ordered by smart phone delivered directly to the seats. The place practically came with a good weather guarantee far from the fogs and whipping winds of old Candlestick Park and featured a sod field kept green with reclaimed water and open to the sun.

  Ordinarily, the Billodeaux family preferred being close to the field, but considering the delicate circumstances, they rented a luxury suite with enough room to keep Ilsa and Stacy a fair distance apart. Just before signing the final agreement, Isla had again challenged Stacy’s presence and gotten pouty to the point of a refusal to cooperate. She voiced her intention to tell her story to the world in a soprano voice worthy in range and volume of a Wagnerian opera singer complete with horned helmet. Stacy laid claim to Dean loudly and clearly announcing their engagement to the woman, which had gone down like sour pickle juice after a hangover. Isla signed the papers, too smart to throw away what had been won, but no one knew when hostilities would break out again.

  Arriving in California a week in advance of the game, Dean enjoyed a relatively peaceful round of press interviews and photo ops. Word of Ilsa’s condition remained a secret within the family, but wouldn’t for long even though she bore her pregnancy like a movie star with a baby bump so discreet going into the fourth month it left people guessing.

  Mawmaw Nadine fussed about low birth weights and young women who cared more about their figures than a healthy baby. All things considered, she’d taken the news well with a sad shake of her head and the comment, “Why you always go for the foreign blondes, Deanie?”

  Stacy with her Polish ancestry and no blood connection to Mawmaw knew herself to be included in that list, but Dean replied, “I take after my daddy before he met my mom, I guess.” That put a stopper in the old woman’s gob. “You and Stacy are legal since she don’t have no Billodeaux in her,” Mawmaw conceded with a great heaving of the ample bosom that had nursed five children. “I be praying for y’all and that cher bebe.”

  Remembering his mother’s second and third pregnancies well, Dean worried about the small size of the baby bump, too. Nell squeezed his arm. “Thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, I never had a normal birth, always twins and triplets. Short as I am, I looked like a full moon rising from early on. Don’t fret. I’ll keep an eye on Ilsa and her diet at the game. I think she wants attention and acceptance. I can give her that much. I’m counting on Stacy to keep her cool.” In other words, his mom would take care of everything. He left it her hands and turned his attention to the big game.

  Dean swore his dad kept his nose pressed against the glass of the luxury box for the entire event as he yearned to be nearer the field. Anyone who shelled out a thousand dollars plus per ticket got their money’s worth this year. A rough and tumble first half brought the score to 21-21 going into the locker room, still anybody’s game. Seattle took advantage of holes in the Sinner’s defensive line, and Dean and his receivers made up for that with long spirals thrown and fantastic catches far down the field. Nothing much to discuss at the half except for the ass-chewing the defense got from Coach Buck. Both teams came back ready to rumble.

  Dean took
a hard sack late in the third quarter and spent some precious minutes out of the game. Leon Davies lost the ball and let Seattle score again. The Sinners came back tough and answered that one at the top of the fourth. Still tied, the clock ticked off the final minutes of the Super Bowl, and Seattle had the ball. Helpless, Dean paced and shouted support to his defense. Redemption came from their aging Samoan cornerback, Adam Malala, who stripped the ball from a receiver and ran it all the way back for the final touchdown. Seattle had run the clock down so far they had no chance to retaliate. After a ten year drought, the Sinners claimed another ring, Adam’s second since he’d played a similar role in Joe’s final victory.

  Dean hardly cared about sharing the glory and would have preferred that Adam be MVP instead of him. He voiced that thought after he accepted the trophy with his family lined up behind him on the dais. Daddy Joe kept a firm grip around Ilsa’s expanding waist, keeping her from being jostled in the crowd and looking out for his future grandson, possibly another Sinners quarterback still in the womb. He also held her back when Dean called Stacy forward and announced their engagement to the world. The Billodeauxs did know about teamwork.

  Unfortunately, this led to some ugly fabrications in the gossip rags that Joe Billodeaux suffered from a mid-life crisis and had abandoned his wife and many children to start another family with a tall, blonde model. Dean stepped forward the following week at a press conference acknowledging the child as his conceived during a brief break in a his relationship with his fiancée. He answered no questions, but with the truth out, he did ask Stacy not to go to Germany at all. He had mastered running down a clock. At least, he thought he had.

  “Look, sure, the baby is due in July, but we could have that white wedding thing you want in late August during preseason when I won’t be playing much. I know it’s hot and sticky then, but June in Louisiana isn’t any better. Princess, I don’t want to wait another season for you to be my wife.”

  “I don’t know, Dean. I really should learn German and find out what Ilsa is calling me when she gets mad,” his fiancée said with a perfectly straight face.

  “I’ll get you one of those language courses on CDs if it means that much to you.”

  “Oh, you can’t really learn the vernacular from those.” Stacy shook her head sadly as if he should know this already.

  “Maybe early August then. I can probably carve out a week from training camp and take you to Munich where you can pick up all the curse words you want in the beer halls.” He threw in that charming Billodeaux smile inherited directly from his daddy and hardly ever used on women by Dean.

  “It’s going to be hard to get a big wedding together that quickly. We should wait a year.”

  “I know having a wedding fit for a princess means a lot to you, but we’ve been waiting half our lives for this!” That damned curl of his flopped in his face.

  Stacy pushed it away. Her radiant smile broke through. “I’m teasing, you big lout. That kind of wedding was a childhood dream. I’ve outgrown it. We can get married by a justice of the peace next week if you want.”

  “No, you are going to get the biggest, most honking wedding I can afford, maybe in the middle of July.” He’d inched the date as far forward as he could go and just had to convince Stacy to run with it.

  “Maybe if you get your other hind cheek tattooed with Stacy inside a heart for Valentine’s Day, I might consider the end of July.”

  He’d lost some yardage and hadn’t foreseen the trick play. “You’re joking again, right Stace? You don’t really want that, huh?”

  This time her smile was unreadable. He’d never understand women as well as he did football.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Many hurdles had to be leapt between Valentine’s Day and the last Saturday in July. Dean soon learned planning a big wedding was more complicated than his playbook. They went through the rigmarole of getting permission from the Episcopal priest in Chapelle to allow them to marry in the gothic cathedral on St. Charles, a building every bit as grand as old St. Louis on Jackson Square. He went through the pre-wedding interview, no sweat, figuring the Catholic version would have been worse. They tasted a dozen samples of cake, all white with different fillings, sweet! He thanked Jesus, Mary, and Joseph that he’d been banned from wedding dress shopping.

  In the midst of the preparations, Kent Gonsoulin came to trial. Dean sat in the courtroom while Kent’s high-priced lawyer grilled Stacy on the stand, implying that she’d lured the man to her office with the intention of having sex. Wisely, she’d dressed for court in one of her gray Anchi Services suits, the exact sort of ensemble she’d worn the day Prince got shot and told this to the jury. While she looked great in it, the outfit did not ooze sexual appeal. Coolly, she said Mr. Gonsoulin had asked to use the bathroom and returned exposing himself to her. She’d fled.

  The defense asked if maybe his client had simply forgotten to zip up. “No, he let it all hang out.” Stacy drew laughter from the audience. “He said he’d gotten it ready for me. I needed to pay for jilting him for the prom and letting my dog pee on his feet. He was ready to pop.” Dean watched the back of Kent’s neck go red, well, redder than usual. His lawyer made Stacy admit that Mr. Gonsoulin never actually touched her.

  “I kicked his hand away from my ankle after he fell on the spilled pencils.”

  “Perhaps, he sought your assistance in getting up.”

  “He’d already gotten it up by himself before he slipped,” Stacy replied. “I had no intention of joining him on the floor.” More laughter. Way to go, Princess.

  She told of running into Prince Dobbs and what ensued. No, she could not swear Mr. Gonsoulin intended to shoot her and had to confess he might have been trying to save her from a mugger. Stacy recounted Dean’s arrival, summoned by a signal of putting a red scarf in the window, because she’d feared trouble with Kent. To hear her tell it, he’d been the unstained hero of the night. Remembering how he’d treated Stacy and what came after, Dean slumped down in his seat. At last, the judge dismissed her, saying she should remain available in case they needed to call her again.

  The police officer testified next referring to photos of the Anchi office in disarray, the loan forms used to get an appointment with Miss Polasky, the red scarf in a bag, and the gun they had found at the scene. The paparazzo told his version. At last, Prince Dobbs was called into the courtroom, pausing to take Stacy’s hand where she sat by Dean and say, “God bless you,” as he passed. Prince walked like a man completely healed, but with most of his swagger drained away. He wore his hair in small, light brown fuzzy dreads all over his head that created an almost halo effect. With his honey-colored face clean-shaven and still bearing the light scars of Stacy’s nails, he’d dressed in a conservative suit and tie, no tats showing, when he took the stand.

  The defense made sure to display to the jurors pictures of the bearded Prince wearing his knit cap taken as he sat on the sidelines of a Sinners game. Yes, he’d been dressed entirely in black. “But that’s not my color no more, man.” He had to testify to his height and weight and condition at the time. “Recovering from a previous injury. I’m a little lighter now from all the PT, but I’ll be rock hard and ready to run by September.”

  “So you sustained no serious injury due to my client’s actions.”

  “I wouldn’t say that, oh no. I died and saw Jesus. I forgive your client for my suffering like the Lord said to do.” Prince thumped his chest a few times with a sizeable fist.

  “Still grandstanding,” Stacy whispered to Dean.

  “He was an arrogant asshole, now he’s a jerk for Jesus, but I can stand the new version a whole lot better,” Dean said.

  Then, Kent’s lawyer asked why Prince had come to Stacy’s house that evening.

  “To make amends, man, to make amends.”

  “For what?”

  “For thinking she wanted to have sex wit’ me when she didn’t. She stomped my foot good and, uh, while leaving I fell down her stairs.” Prince
’s eyes rolled in Dean’s direction and cut away again. He’d saved his own dignity and spared his quarterback. “Dr. Funk, the team shrink, said I got to apologize. My apology was not honest. That’s why I got shot, Jesus said.”

  Stacy was recalled to explain her relationship with Prince. “We’ve known each other from childhood. Our families are friends. I called off a date with him, and he took it badly, wanted to have sex. I didn’t. I did defend myself and yes, Mr. Dobbs fell down my stairs. I reported his actions to the team.”

  “Have you always been a sexual tease, Miss Polasky, even in high school when you reneged on a promise to go to the prom with my client?”

  Out of orders sounded. The gavel banged. The question brought the red to Stacy’s cheeks. She blinked hard a few times. Dean knew the signs, but they would not make her cry. He’d tried to make her weep often enough as an obnoxious teen to realize that. Now, she’d shielded him from the whole Prince mess simply by leaving him out of it. She didn’t have to answer the question, but damage had been done to her character. The lawyer asked about her relationship with Dean Billodeaux at the time. “We were seeing each other.”

  “After you dated Mr. Dobbs but before you tried to seduce my client.”

  Another out of order, but she answered anyway. “I did not date Mr. Dobbs, nor did I try to seduce your client.” Stacy had regained her cool.

  The defense attorney attempted to bring in the recent revelation that during a break in their relationship Dean had fathered a child with another woman—or had they been engaged in a ménage a trois? The judge ruled that irrelevant to the case.

  The trial continued for several days with medical experts on Prince’s condition, both mental and physical, and chance for full recovery. A parade of character witnesses testified that Kent Gonsoulin was a pillar of the community, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, a regular attendee at Ste. Jeanne d’Arc, and a good family man. He’d sold many a trailer to black people and had nothing against them, Kent said when called to the stand. As for Stacy, he’d misread her signals since she’d haggled over the fees and services to keep him in her office—which had a bedroom upstairs. Being such a beautiful woman, he simply couldn’t turn her down. No, no, he’d never considered cheating on his wife before, but this opportunity was just too tempting. He sent Stacy an oleaginous smile that must have creeped out the two young women on the jury.