Adi contemplated the empty bottle sadly. “I’d given him his escape route, and my head on a platter along with it.”
“But you didn’t lose,” I pointed out. “In fact, you took them down 5–2! It was sports headline news everywhere.”
He looked up at me and his expression was classic Adi Varney. A huge grin with a slightly feral edge. There was nothing that made Adi happier than winning – unless it was winning big.
“That we did, Graham. That we did.”
CHAPTER 10
“Everybody says that football is ‘a game of two halves’. But not everyone plans their strategy with that in mind. Adi, however, always does.”
Graham Deeson, match report in The Echo
It was good to see Adi looking happy, but there was obviously more to tell, and I didn’t think that this was going to be “happy ever after”. I started to point out the most obvious fly in the ointment.
“But Lonza…”
Adi cut me off with a wave of his stick. “Sure, Lonza thought he had it sorted. The fix was in. Not through me, of course. I was the patsy, the fall guy. And I guess he knew that I’d never agree to throw a match anyway. But the evening before the game, Hans Van Hoorn came to have a quiet word with me. Seems that Handy Jack had been round to see him, and had made him an offer. If Hans saw to it that the CSS lost to Real, and preferably lost big, then he’d get to go back home with a significant cash-in-hand bonus. Now Hans is a straight arrow, not a dishonest bone in his body, and he told Jack straight out that he’d have nothing to do with it. Jack just shrugged, and told him that if he didn’t he’d go home with two broken legs, at a minimum.”
“Carrot and stick,” I commented.
“Carrot and baseball bat most likely,” Adi said. “That being Jack’s tool of choice. So Hans said yes, but first chance he got he slipped off to see me.
“Of course, I knew straight away that Lonza wouldn’t be putting all his rotten eggs into one basket. If he’d had a go at Hans, then he’d probably also had a word with José Santos – and from what I knew of José, he wasn’t above taking a backhander. And there were a couple of the others who I thought would be especially vulnerable to that sort of pressure. So Hans and I put our heads together, had a bit of a think, and came up with a plan.
“We’d hired a big stadium – the home ground for LA Galaxy – and Lonza had laid everything on to make a big spectacle of it. Cheerleaders, fireworks, a marching band – the whole kit and caboodle. The stadium was packed, the TV cameras were there, and Lonza had booked himself a big corporate box, where he planned to sit and watch me go down the pan while he raked in some big bucks.
“Of course, I didn’t need for that to happen. So just before the players went out, I changed the starting line-up. I pulled Hans out, and made sure that all those I had suspicions about were in.”
Sam frowned. “Wasn’t that the wrong way to go about it? I’d have thought that you’d pull Santos and anyone else you didn’t trust.”
Adi gave him a sly look. “And let Lonza know that I was on to him? No, he wasn’t going to find that out until it was too late to stop it. After all, football is a game of two halves, as your dad often said.”
I winced. “You know I always tried to avoid clichés, Adi. I don’t think I ever used that one. Well, rarely at any rate.”
“A cliché perhaps, but a truth as well. And something I was going to teach Lonza all about.” Adi finally put down his bottle so he could use his hands to illustrate the moves of the game. “So, first half, Madrid started well right from the kick-off. They pushed their forwards through the centre…” (he jabbed his left hand forward) “… crossed the ball in from the right…” (wave of his right hand) “… and the centre-forward hammered it in” (punching with his left). “We were 1–0 down in the first minute.
“I was proud of those lads, though. A shock like that can knock all the confidence out of a team, even an experienced one, but these lads had some character. They picked themselves up and got back into the game. Well, some of them did. It was soon pretty clear who was pulling their weight and who was coasting. Or worse, who was deliberately playing to lose. Santos, for one. Every pass he made went astray, a lot of them were gifts to the opposition. Madrid kept piling on the pressure, but our lads hung on in spite of it. Still, without all the team on the same side there was only one way it was going to go. Five minutes before half-time, Madrid put another one in our net.”
“Tough one. But you’ve pulled it back from worse than that,” I commentated. “Remember that cup tie against QPR? 4–1 down at half-time and you still came out on top!”
Adi laughed. “Yeah, 5–4 it finished and I knocked in the winner in injury time. That was a classic, wasn’t it? And that’s the story I told them in the changing rooms. Of course, they all came off looking pretty dejected. But I knew how to deal with that.”
I nodded. Adi’s team talks were legendary. It was said that he’d reduced men to tears on occasion, though I never actually witnessed that – but I had seen him fire up a losing team to go out and play like champions.
“What did you do about Santos?” Sam asked, focusing on the practical.
“Oh, I pulled him out, of course. Him and a couple of others. They didn’t like it. Santos was furious, but I just told him to disappear back to the backwater I’d found him in.”
“Harsh,” said Sam, raising an eyebrow. “If he’d been threatened the way Hans was.”
“Maybe. But nobody plays to lose on my team. No ifs, no buts, no excuses. Has it ever been different, Graham?”
I shook my head. “Not on your watch, Adi. Not on your team.”
“That’s right. So after half-time, the team went out without the losers.” Adi was sitting forward on his seat now. “Madrid had the kick-off, but they were pretty relaxed about it. It was obvious that they thought this one was sorted. I was glad to see that. Nothing better in an opponent than complacency. But the way they were just kicking it around, like it was just a warm-up for a training session, that was annoying as well.
“Then they got a bit too careless, and fumbled a pass. One of my lads picked it up, passed to Hans, who knocked it back into our half.” Adi was gesturing again, but now he’d picked up his stick and was waving it to add even more emphasis to his words.
“Madrid weren’t too bothered by that, as it looked like Hans was playing defensive, just doing his best to keep possession and not concede any more goals. So they went after it, but in no great hurry. They didn’t expect it to be going anywhere.
“The thing was, though, the ball had gone to a particular person, a lad named Johnson Delgardo. Now Johnson was a solid lad in defence, not fast but powerful. And he had a huge kick on him, one of the strongest I’d ever seen. What’s more, he was accurate with it as well. And this was a play that we’d worked out in training and practised a bit, so he knew what to do.
“He kept the ball until he saw that Madrid had taken the bait and were coming down the field towards him. Then he sent it back up, huge long kick well into their half.”
A long wave of the stick described the arc of the ball.
“And at first it looked like he’d panicked and just kicked it anywhere. Out into open space. But then Mickey Cratz comes out of nowhere and picks it up.
“Mickey’s one of the lads I’ve just brought on at half-time. Thing is, he’s not really match-fit. I haven’t had enough time to train him up properly, and he doesn’t have the stamina for a full ninety minutes. But when he’s fresh, he’s one of the fastest lads I’ve ever had on a team. And he can take the ball with him as well.
“So before Madrid know what’s happening, he’s away with it, heading for goal. They’re all over the place, out of position, he’s past the defenders with only the goalie to beat.
“Mickey hasn’t got a fantastic shot on him, so I’ve told him to play to his strengths. ‘Don’t go for anything fancy,’ I told him. ‘Go in fast, get in close, and tap it over the line.’ Which is exactly what
he did – swerved off to the side, pulled the goalie out of position, then back the other way, right round him, side-footed it into the net from five yards out!
“Some of the Madrid players were shouting that it was offside – which was ridiculous, they’d had players between Mickey and the goal when he got the ball. They just hadn’t been fast enough to intercept him. It did give me a worried moment though, because I couldn’t be sure that Lonza hadn’t got to the referee as well. But he obviously hadn’t, because the goal stood, no problem.”
“I’d have thought that the ref was the first person Lonza would have gone for,” said Sam.
“Yeah, well, it was a possibility. But this guy was on the level, Major League referee. It would have been a lot riskier for Lonza to nobble him than it was to work on his own team members. More expensive as well!”
“So you were 2–1 now?” I prompted.
“Yes, back in the game, and those Spanish lads are lining up for the kick-off still scratching their heads and wondering what the heck happened.” Adi laughed. “Their faces! And I just wish I could have seen Lonza’s. Even better, I wish I could have seen him a few minutes later when we scored again! Johnson this time, and I was really glad he got one in – he deserved it, he’s a hard worker. Free kick, thirty or forty yards out, curved it perfectly, top right-hand corner of the net.
“Of course, I knew Lonza wouldn’t just take that. So I wasn’t surprised when Handy Jack storms into the dugout with a face like an angry pit bull, telling me to pull Hans off and send Santos back out.
“I told him that that wasn’t going to happen, and he starts getting nasty about it. I mean, physically nasty. Time was when I’d have had a go at him myself, but I’m not up to that so much nowadays. So I’d taken a few precautions.
“While I was out scouting, I’d come across a tall young man – just eighteen, but four inches over six feet, and agile with it. Vincent Tansen, one of the best lads in the air I’ve ever come across, and pretty good with his feet as well. Of course, I’d snapped him up and he was one of the ones I’d put out against Madrid.
“While I was getting to know Vincent, I also met his cousin. Who, as it happens, was ex-military. What particular branch of the military he never actually said, but I gathered he’d been involved in some interesting operations that the public never got to hear of, in places that the US weren’t officially involved in, doing things that never actually happened according to the records, which didn’t exist anyway…”
“Yes, OK, I’ve got the idea,” I told him. “Casey, I presume.”
“Let me tell the story, Graham.” Adi frowned. “You get a few articles published and you think you’ve got all the answers!”
I grinned. “Sorry.” Same old argument.
“The point is that this cousin – yes, OK, Casey – had now moved into the private sector and was looking for employment. So I asked him to come along to the match, watch Vincent make his début against Real Madrid, and to even things up a bit if Handy Jack got a bit too handy. So when Jack took a step too close to me, fists all ready to go, Casey just stands up, steps between us, and looks him straight in the face.
“Well, I can tell you I’ve felt tension in a dugout before, but never anything like that. You could just about hear the air crackling between them.
“Then Jack takes a step back, and pulls back his jacket. Of course he’s – what’s the term you use, Casey? Packing heat?”
“He had a concealed firearm,” Casey said. “Specifically a Ruger SP-101 357 Magnum revolver.”
“OK, whatever. But Casey was also wearing a jacket, and he also pulled it back, and he had a gun as well.”
“Sounds just like the Wild West,” Sam observed.
“Yeah, I know.” Adi looked grim. “But when it actually happens, right in front of you, you’re not thinking of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. You’re just thinking that people could die and hoping that you won’t be one of them.”
“It was never going to come to that,” Casey said. “Only amateurs and film directors would start a firefight in those circumstances.”
“Yes, well, I didn’t have your professional insight.” Adi was gripping his stick very tightly, I noticed. Clear evidence of how taut the situation must have been at the time, if the mere memory could get him so wound up.
“But he backed down?” I asked.
Adi nodded. “Seemed at the time like they were staring each other out for ten minutes or more. Of course, it was only a few seconds. Then there was a big cheer went up in the stadium – we’d scored another. Nice goal as well – Hans floated it in from a corner kick and Vincent slipped between two defenders, out-jumped them both, and just flicked it past the goalie and into a top corner. Beautifully done. Of course, none of us in the dugout saw it, which was annoying, especially for Casey, who had come to see his cousin.”
“I caught it on replay later,” Casey told us.
“It was a while before I got to see it. But at the time, the really important thing was that Jack just turned and left without another word.”
“He was thinking that TV would be zooming in on the dugout,” Casey explained. “They always do after something like that; they want to get the reactions. He didn’t want to be caught on camera, and he’d already figured out that he wasn’t getting anywhere.”
“Whatever. The point being, he’d gone, we were winning, and there was nothing Lonza could do about it. Nothing Real Madrid could do either!” Adi relaxed his grip on the stick and sat back, grinning. “We put two more past them before full-time! The whole stadium was on its feet when the final whistle went. People were going wild, it was like we’d won the World Cup or something. I went out onto the pitch, hugging those lads as they came off, and they lifted me up on their shoulders and took me all round the stadium. Best moment of my life, Graham. Best moment ever.”
I saw the look in his eyes, the hunger. That was what Adi lived for. That adulation, that success – that victory. Nothing mattered more to him than winning. But…
“But you still had Lonza to deal with,” I pointed out.
“Well, yes.” Adi sat back, shaking his head. He held his stick up in front of him, examining the top of it minutely. He would do that with his old brass-headed stick, I remembered. When he didn’t want to meet my eyes.
“See, I thought that I could talk him round,” he said. “I had it all planned out. I knew what I was going to say. CSS had won, and won big. We were on the map, we were ready to rock-and-roll… All Lonza had to do was get behind it, make good on his promises, and he’d get back everything he’d invested and more besides. It was all pretty clear to me. I thought he’d see it my way. So as soon as the lads put me down, I went up to his box.”
“I did advise against that,” Casey said.
“Yes. OK, yes, you did.” Adi clearly didn’t like to be reminded of it. “But I took some precautions, OK? I told the lads to go home, celebrate, wait for a call. Hans – we both thought it would be best if he stayed out of the way for a while, so he went straight to the airport from the stadium, still wet from the showers, and was on the next plane home. I said I’d be calling him back in a week or two. Santos of course was already gone. He hadn’t waited for the final whistle.”
“And you went to see Lonza,” I stated. “I take it he wasn’t that impressed by your arguments?”
“He never even heard them. I stepped into the box – he was standing there, looking at me, with Handy Jack next to him. I opened my mouth and Jack just stepped forward and hit me in the gut. I mean, really hit. It drove all the breath out of me, doubled me up, and dropped me to the floor. And as I’m lying there, curled up and gasping, Lonza walks over and kicks me. Which showed how mad he was as he never did any of the rough stuff himself – that was what Jack was for. But he made an exception in this case.”
“Where was Casey?” I asked.
Adi shook his head. “He wasn’t there. Not his fault. I told him to make sure Hans and the other lads got out OK, but I w
asn’t really expecting any trouble. And, like I said, I was pretty sure that now we’d shown what we could do, Lonza could be talked round.”
“People like Lonza, they don’t talk to people who’ve screwed them over. Not without a gun to their heads.”
We all looked at Sam. He glanced round. “Just what I’ve heard,” he added, but I hadn’t liked the assured way he’d assessed Lonza’s character. I didn’t like the way Casey nodded slowly, looking as though he was reappraising Sam.
“So when did you get to be such an expert?” Adi challenged him. He didn’t like the implied criticism, even though he’d pretty much admitted his mistake.
Sam shrugged.
“Guess you learned a few life-lessons on your travels,” Adi continued. “You’ll have to tell us more about those sometime.”
“What happened after that?” I asked, wanting to move the conversation on. “I take it Lonza didn’t just leave it there?”
“No. No, he didn’t.” Adi sat back, stony-faced. “Jack put cable ties round my hands and feet – I couldn’t do anything to stop him – and carried me out like a sack of spuds. Dumped me in the trunk – the boot, that is – of Lonza’s car and off we went. And you think you had a rough trip coming here? Believe me, you don’t know the half of it. Hours, I was trussed up in there, breathing fumes and still aching from that punch. But I didn’t want it to stop, either, because I was pretty sure that when we got to where we were going, I’d be made to dig a hole, then shot and dropped in it. Or maybe not even shot first.” He cast a look at Sam. “Ever had an experience like that in your travels?”
“No, nothing like that,” Sam admitted.
That gave Adi his smile back. “Thought not. Not many people do – not and live to tell the story afterwards! Still, it was a pretty close thing. When they finally pulled me out Lonza was standing there with a gun in his hand, and from the look he was giving me, he wanted to use it. But he held off, and instead had Jack cut off the cable ties and (since I was too stiff and cramped to walk) carry me inside.
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