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“Is that all we’re paying you?” Payton asked.

“Yes,” said Visconti. “I can’t live on it.”

“Come back tomorrow,” Payton said. “I’ll take care of it.”

The next day, Visconti was informed that he would be making thirty-two thousand dollars annually, plus benefits. “Walter gave me my first salaried job,” he said. “How many people can say the first raise they ever received was from Walter Payton?”

Layne began working at Studebaker’s as a nineteen-year-old waitress in 1989. One morning, when her eight-year-old brother, Douglas, was off from school, she brought him to the bar. Before leaving home, she called and asked her boss whether he’d be willing to shake her brother’s hand. “Of course,” said Payton. “I’d be happy to.”

“We get there, and Walter grabs Douglas, takes him into his office, and spends about two hours with him,” said Layne. “He came away with a bunch of photographs and a football Walter signed. All he had to do to make Douglas’ day was say hello. But he went so much further.”

One of Payton’s favorite employees was Elmer Hutson, a twenty-eight-year-old manager known to the entire Studebaker’s staff as J. R. Based out of Miami, Hutson was asked by McFadden Ventures, Studebaker’s parent company, to move to Illinois in 1987 and help manage the Schaumburg entity. Having never been to Chicago, he jumped at the opportunity.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, April 13, 1988, Hutson arrived early at the bar, to make certain his staff had cleaned ably the night before. While there, he engaged in a heated phone exchange with Mike McKenna, a representative from Coors Light. Fifteen minutes after hanging up, Hutson was summoned to see Payton. “I walk into his office, and he had a couch and two chairs up against the wall,” said Hutson. “He was sitting on one chair and Mike McKenna—who came to complain about me—was in the other. I sat down on the arm of the couch, so the three of us were in a triangle. Walter had the phone to his ear, talking to Connie.”

In his right hand, Payton was holding a 9mm French-made Manurhin Pistolet, which he had recently purchased for his collection. As he spoke with his wife, Payton repeatedly spun the gun, jokingly pointing it toward Hutson. “He twirled it a couple of times, then came back up with the gun and put it down again,” Hutson said. “That’s when it went off.”

To the shock of the three men, a bullet exploded from the weapon and entered Hutson’s left knee. It fragmented his kneecap, traveled nine inches up his thigh, took out approximately two inches of hamstring, and all of his cartilage. The bullet exited through the rear of the leg, leaving a three-inch hole.

Hutson fell to the floor and grasped his leg. “Was the gun loaded?” he screamed. Payton instinctively dropped the weapon. “Oh my God!” he said. “I almost aimed higher!”

“It felt like my entire leg was on fire,” said Hutson. “It was the most excruciating pain I’ve ever experienced.”

Payton immediately dialed 911, and followed with a call to his attorney. The bar’s on-duty employees rushed to see what had happened. “Walter shot J. R.!” somebody yelled. “Walter shot J. R.!” An ambulance rushed Hutson to Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, where a nurse asked him whether he had contacted his parents. “No,” Hutson said, “I haven’t.”

“Well, you better do it now,” she said. “Because the story’s about to be released to the Associated Press wire.”

Indeed, the next morning the news of the NFL’s all-time leading rusher gunning down an employee had swept the nation. Hundreds of papers carried the story, and radio’s talking heads wondered whether Payton would face charges. Payton visited the hospital and apologized profusely. When Hutson returned home ten days later, he was greeted by a new set of lefthanded Wilson golf clubs, accompanied by a note from Payton. “I believe Walter was genuinely sorry,” said Hutson. “He was a nice man who I really respected.”

One year after the shooting, however, a limping, pain-stricken Hutson was let