Stung

by Gary Stephen Ross

  The woman reached for her wine glass and sipped like an actress. Molony concealed his disgust, avoiding her eye while Colizzi counted out hundreds. “Thirty-nine, forty.”

  Molony stuffed the money in his pocket.

  “You two have fun.”

  “You sure?” said Colizzi. “My treat.”

  “Maybe he’d like a line,” said the woman.

  Colizzi laughed. “He gets his at the crap table. He doesn’t like that shit any more than I do.”

  Molony shut the door and shuddered with revulsion. Why would anybody waste time on a dyed stranger with bruises on her arm? You could get your oil changed anywhere. You didn’t have to fly out to Nevada. Why would anyone come all that way and spend time anywhere but the casino or the sports book? They only had two days.

  Finally, finally, the bad dream was over. Molony had been shooting craps for two days and nights and had won so much money he could barely carry it. He flew back to Toronto with his pockets and his bag jammed with hundred-dollar bills. He made it through customs — the final hurdle — and found, when he got to the branch, a letter waiting for him. Harry Buckle gave it to him. He’d been appointed to Commerce Court, the bank’s most important branch, as senior assistant manager! An unheard-of posting for someone his age. The appointment was effective immediately; he was wanted at Commerce Court right away. First, though, he hurried down to Richardson’s, purchased bearer bonds, and retired all the bad loans. No one would be the wiser. Then he raced down to King Street. He was ushered into Ross Brady’s office. Alex Osborne was there, too. Both men shook his hand warmly.

  “Congratulations,” said Brady. “Quite a step.”

  “I can hardly believe it,” said Molony. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You’re most deserving,” said Osborne. “Impeccable record, excellent judgement, a history of achievement. I’m proud of you. Good work.”

  “I just want you both to know —”

  “Wake up,” said Colizzi, elbowing him. “We’ll be landing in a minute. You’re talking to yourself.”

  God, was he hallucinating? He felt his pockets. He had won, he wasn’t completely crazy, he’d turned Colizzi’s $4,000 into $65,000. It didn’t solve his problems, but at least it was a start.

  Colizzi drove him home. When he let himself into the apartment Brenda kissed him and told him that friends had invited them to a New Year’s Eve party.

  “What did you say?”

  “That we’d love to see them,” she said, keeping him in suspense a moment. “But that you’d mentioned something about another party.”

  “I’ll look after it.”

  Molony phoned and said, “We’d really enjoy seeing you, but I’m afraid we’ve already made plans for New Year’s Eve. I don’t see how I can change them.”

  “We never get to see you two anymore. Why don’t you come over for brunch tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow’s not an option,” said Molony.

  “Come for brunch on New Year’s Day.”

  “Damn,” said Molony. “I’m afraid that’s not possible either. You know what it’s like at this time of year.”

  Jan. 1, 1982. Caesars Atlantic City. Archie Rich.

  4:50 p.m. Craps 12. Purple play. Maloney betting Don’t Pass, Don’t Come and Come at the same roll. Lost heavily and walked.

  A couple of weeks into the New Year, Molony was on his way out of the branch when he bumped into Leo Sherman’s accountant. He was an older fellow, semi-retired, not in the best of health. Sherman had taken him on to give him something useful to do.

  “Where’s Steve?” said the accountant.

  Molony was in a hurry — he intended to stop at Friedberg’s and Richardson Securities on his way to a meeting at Commerce Court — but Steve Richardson was away from his desk. Molony had to be polite.

  “He must have stepped out. Anything I can help you with?”

  The accountant produced a bank statement showing a mysterious debit to Leo Sherman’s current account. Molony realized instantly what it was: a month’s interest on the fraudulent $360,000 loan. The interest was supposed to accrue in the loan account so that it wouldn’t show up in the current account. The accountant said he had no idea what the debit referred to. It could have been something Sherman had done without telling him. He was going to ask Steve Richardson to investigate.

  “I’ll look after it.”

  “Don’t bother,” said the old fellow. “You’ve got more important things to do. I don’t mind waiting.”

  “What’s more important than customer satisfaction?”

  Molony took the statement to the discount department, explained the mistake to the clerk, and asked her to correct it.

  “Our error,” he told the accountant. “It’s been straightened out.”

  “You had me worried there for a moment.”

  “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “It’s nice to know even bankers are human.”

  “Thanks for dropping by,” said Molony. “I have to run, I’m late for a meeting. Give my best to Leo.”

  Alex Osborne had invited Molony for a drink with two senior partners at Blake, Cassels & Graydon, one of the Toronto firms that handled the CIBC’s legal work. This was Osborne’s way of signalling to the bank’s senior counsel that Molony was a comer, and of introducing him to people he might one day need to call on. Over drinks the lawyers said that Blake’s was seeking ways of securing more of the bank’s Toronto business. Strathy, Archibald & Seagram, a competing firm, did a good deal of CIBC work in the Toronto area and the partners were eager to know how their firm could get more involved.

  When Alex Osborne was at Bay and Richmond, he held weekly seminars for his assistant managers. He spoke for an hour on a given subject and then fielded questions. Molony had found the seminars immensely helpful and suggested to the partners that bankers would profit from bull sessions in which they could ask hands-on questions about registering a security in Alberta, dealing with a London bank, assessing the collateral value of partnership agreements. How about a seminar on bankruptcy — what are the bank’s legal rights and obligations when a customer declares bankruptcy? The bank assumed you’d pick these things up through experience. Why not provide the information in a concentrated but informal way? Osborne told the partners he thought it a great idea.

  When the lawyers left, Osborne ordered another round. Keele and Lawrence was going to be a lot of work, he said, and he was trying to get Molony transferred up from Bay and Richmond. Molony had to appear delighted. The transfer would mean another step up the ladder, another promotion engineered by Osborne. It would mean a grade increase, from grade 9 to grade 10 or even 11, with a corresponding raise in salary. And it would mean he would be reunited with Alex Osborne.

  “Nothing would please me more, Mr. O. At the same time, there’s a lot to accomplish at Bay and Richmond.” The implication was that Buckle was not the manager Osborne had been.

  “That’s no longer my first concern,” said Osborne. “My main goal now is to get Keele and Lawrence straightened out.”

  “Speaking of goals,” said Molony, “I notice Mark scored again last night.”

  “Let me know if you run across tickets for the Detroit game next month. We’ll get a group together.”

  “He doesn’t seem to be having many problems adjusting to the NHL.”

  Osborne gestured with his swizzle stick. He’d had a drink or two. “If you’ve got talent and you’re willing to work hard, you’ll succeed. I saw the talent in Mark many years ago, and I’ve tried to teach him the value of hard work.” He raised his glass of scotch in a toast. “I like to think I’ve got a knack for spotting talent.”

  Jan. 15, 1982. Caesars Atlantic City. Matt Wilson.

  1:30 p.m. Craps 5. Maloney on game. Still losing steadily.

  Jan. 16, 1982. Caesars Atlantic City. Kenneth Rapp.

  3:45 p.m. Craps 11. Steady purple action. Maloney has gotten $45,000 in markers and is losing.

  On Fr
iday, January 22, 1982, in York County Court, Judge George Ferguson granted the head of the Metro Toronto Police Intelligence Bureau, and those persons aiding him, an authorization to intercept private communications. It made legal the monitoring of certain specified communications either by “an electrical connection known as a ‘cross-connect’ or ‘hard wire connection’ capable … of intercepting telephone communications and transmitting them to a monitoring location,” or by “a microphone capable … of intercepting oral communications and transmitting them to a monitoring location.” The authorization, valid for sixty days, empowered the police to wiretap eight men. One was Mario Colizzi.

  The morning after the wiretap authorization was granted, Molony flew to Las Vegas for Super Bowl weekend. He had bet $80,000 on the game with the bookies in Toronto, who’d taken the bet on condition Molony pay cash if he lost but take only half cash if he won, the other half to be applied against his outstanding tabs. Roger Oskaner had been busy, and Molony had another $140,000 U.S. in his pockets. He promised himself he’d put $130,000 on San Francisco the moment he arrived in Las Vegas. The 49ers, he believed, were a good bet, and winning $130,000 U.S. and $80,000 Canadian would be a first step toward paying off his loans.

  It was a beautiful winter day in the desert, bright and warm, the mountains brilliantly etched against the blue sky. At the sports book in the Barbary Coast, Molony asked the maximum bet they’d accept on the Super Bowl and was told $500,000, and $500,000 more every hour thereafter. He’d had good luck at mini-baccarat in the Barbary. If he put $70,000 on the game he’d have twenty-four hours to run the other $70,000 up to half a million. Put half a million on the Super Bowl at 6 — 1 odds — a round-robin parlay, guessing which team would score more points in each quarter and whether the total points would be over or under the casino’s prediction — and he’d turn the half million into $3-million. More than enough to repay his outstanding loans. Just like that, the anxiety of the past fifteen months would dissolve like a child’s phantom.

  Molony asked for orange juice and sat down at the mini-baccarat table. Half an hour later the $70,000 was gone.

  How could he have been so ignorant? He’d promised himself he’d put the money on the Super Bowl. He didn’t even have the self-discipline to keep his promise. A weakling and a fool. He deserved to lose. It was only Saturday afternoon and he barely had cab fare back to the airport. Depression was empty pockets in Las Vegas. In action, his focus was as pure and absolute as the desert sky. Broke, he became unpleasantly aware of the taste of thawed shrimp, the chemical basis of the orange juice, the stricken expressions of the people around him. You saw many emotions in a casino but happiness wasn’t one of them. Losers were distraught and winners wanted more. Losing made Molony ache the way broken hearts made teenagers ache. Not because he’d lost but because he couldn’t play. Nothing made him feel so deeply the vacancy that lingered after he’d told himself how much he had to be thankful for — good health, brains, work he enjoyed, a woman who loved him, family and friends. The things that, in others, added up to a rich life. The things that, in him, got sealed away, by a complex routing, in some inaccessible station of the heart.

  Molony flew back to Toronto and watched the Super Bowl at Eli Koharski’s townhouse. Early in the game Cincinnati got inside the 49ers’ ten-yard line and failed to score. Koharski, who had the Bengals, yelled at the television.

  San Francisco led 20 — 0 at the half. This was exactly what Molony had foreseen. Exactly what he’d wanted to happen. He’d won his first-half bets. Why, then, when the game resumed, did he find himself cheering for Cincinnati?

  “I thought you liked the 49ers,” said Koharski. “Bet it both ways, or what?”

  Molony didn’t want the Bengals to win, but the game lacked intensity. There was something profoundly unsatisfying about it. God, what a baffling enterprise. He was getting what he wanted and it was not what he wanted. He had to have victory but hungered more deeply for drama. Where was the consummation in this helpless passion? Cincinnati scored twice and he had all the drama he wanted. Late in the game the Bengals got within five points. If they recovered their onside kick and scored another touchdown, they’d win the game.

  The 49ers recovered the kick and won 26 — 21. Koharski stomped around, kicking furniture and cursing. “Those bastards cost me five hundred bucks!”

  Molony sat impassively on the sofa, amused by Koharski’s performance. He himself had won $70,000 on his parlays in Las Vegas, breaking even on the trip. He’d won $80,000 in Toronto, but the bookies would keep half the $80,000, plus the weekly $10,000, plus next week’s $10,000. Molony would collect only $20,000 Canadian. Driving home, he felt sick, despondent, persecuted. How was he ever going to disentangle himself? Even the things he did right turned out wrong. Who else could have backed the winning team, bet heavily, and barely broken even?

  Monday night he met Colizzi in the parking lot at the racetrack to collect the $20,000. In his new Cadillac Seville, Colizzi patiently wet his thumb and counted out hundred-dollar bills.

  By the sixth race Molony had lost the $20,000. Between races he found Beck and Colizzi by the concession booth. Beck was eating his program. Sunglasses almost hid the swollen discoloration around his left eye.

  “Here comes The Banker, ready to make his move.”

  Colizzi made a pistol of thumb and forefinger and pretended to shoot him in the head.

  After the last race, cursing himself, Molony made his way through the shivering crowd and the sea of worthless tickets. Talk about a bad night. He’d not only lost his Super Bowl winnings, he owed Beck and Colizzi another $25,000.

  “Brian, Larry Woolf. If there’s anything you need, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  Larry Woolf was a compact man in a pinstripe suit and button-down shirt. He was from Shelly, Idaho, and had a trace of the military in his manner, a legacy from his days as a sergeant in the U.S. Army. After receiving an honourable discharge in 1966, he attended the University of Nevada-Reno. He put himself through college by working as a keno writer at Harrah’s, joining the casino full-time after graduating in American history and literature. He dealt all the games — blackjack, craps, baccarat, roulette, and poker — then rose to boxman, floorman, pit boss, shift boss, and finally manager of the pit department. He joined Caesars in 1979, six months before the new casino opened, and moved his wife and two children to New Jersey.

  Woolf was trim, polished, and low-key, a Mormon who could calculate drop percentages in his head while carrying on an urbane conversation. He was the perfect mix of the old breed — he once dealt five-cent craps, and few things attract more lowlife — and the new. An avid reader of the latest books on corporate excellence and management technique, he was quite at home in any boardroom. He was thirty-nine. His neatly trimmed and blowdried hair showed the first signs of grey. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses were those laser eyes ubiquitous in the industry.

  At Caesars he had climbed quickly. He’d been taken on as casino administrator but soon moved up to assistant vice-president of casino operations and then vice-president. Peter Boynton, the president of Caesars, was Woolf’s boss, but among casino employees there was no mistaking who ran the gambling operation. It was Larry Woolf who had made Caesars one of the most dependably profitable casinos, and it was Woolf to whom Molony was referred when he wanted to get his limit raised above the $10,000 table maximum. Molony had seen a group of Orientals playing baccarat for sums far in excess of the posted limit and wondered how he too could get his limit bumped.

  One casino, The Horseshoe in Las Vegas, boasts that it will accept any bet on any game, but every other casino in Nevada and New Jersey imposes a betting limit. The limit prevents a gambler from doubling his bet every hand until he wins, and it insures against the hot streak that could seriously affect profits. Albert Ngan, a Chinese who sometimes gambled with Molony, lived at Caesars for several weeks and played baccarat every day. At one point he was up more than $3-million, enough to raise sweat on the brows
of the casino executives. Anything can happen on a given hand, in a given hour; casinos grind out their profit on longitudinal play, repetition. Albert kept at it until he’d lost his winnings and a good deal more, but not before giving Larry Woolf a few more grey hairs. Not that Brian Molony was a candidate to put a hit on, take the money and run. He was an automatic loser. Spend enough time in a casino and you can spot them at a glance — the ones who don’t drink, don’t notice the tits and ass, don’t care about eating or sleeping or anything but the next hand. Even if Molony did get lucky he’d be back.

  “Your limit’s based on how much you bring,” said Woolf. “We’ll calculate your limit per hand at five per cent of the cash you have on deposit.”

  “If I brought $300,000, I could bet $15,000 a hand.”

  “If you need help making any arrangements, just let us know.”

  Early in February, 14 Division of the Metropolitan Toronto Police asked Craig Law for help with the bookmaking wiretap. Law was a stocky sergeant in the Morality Bureau, a methodical man with back problems and a tendency to put on weight. He ran the antigambling squad and knew as much about bookmaking, and the people engaged in it, as anyone in Toronto — which storefronts in Chinatown hid the fan-tan games, which clubs on College Street saw money change hands, which hotel was home to the illegal dice game.

  Morality work involves endless hours of surveillance. It’s no occupation for the restless. Craig Law was imperturbable. Because of his tenacity and his burliness he was known, though not to his face, as The Bulldog. He had built his own cottage near Parry Sound, working carefully and patiently on weekends and holidays for nearly fifteen years. Patience was key. When somebody applied for surveillance, you asked him in for 2:30 and let him sit until 4 o’clock. If he started pacing or drumming his fingers, he probably wasn’t right.

  One of Law’s best surveillance men was a forty-year-old constable named Ron Andrews. Andrews didn’t look like a cop — balding, with a limp and the beginnings of a pot belly — but a cop was what he’d dreamed of becoming in his boyhood in east-end Toronto, and when they turned him down as undersized he got a job as a tool-and-die maker to build himself up. At the age of twenty-eight he made the weight. For five years he wore a uniform, walked a beat, worked the cars, old clothes, and the front desk at 55 Division. When word got around that the force was putting together a SWAT team, he applied and — a bit to his own surprise — was accepted by the new Emergency Task Force.