Lay the Favorite

by Beth Raymer

  Finally, a plan.

  The sound of gunfire came from the wooded area just beyond our shoreline dinner table. At high speed, three cars broke free of the bush: the bad guy, the Vigilante reporter, and the sheriff, in that order. Headlights reflected off the iron-black sea, making the choppy waves glimmer like switchblades. The bad guy drove directly into the ocean. In an instant, his station wagon was afloat. The reporter—not the sheriff—rushed from his car, plunged into the sea, and returned to shore with the bad guy in a headlock. Reporters are so brave. The thought made me miss Jeremy.

  Citronella torches splashed shadows like war paint across our faces. Drunk and hungry, we returned to our surf-and-turf platters. Except for Bah-Bah, who held his heart in pure, utter terror. Days before, he’d announced his impending departure, blaming his need to leave on “a nasty case of island fever.” I didn’t know what that meant. Was Bah-Bah homesick? Had he done someone wrong? Did he have AIDS? No one dared inquire, for, around the same time that Bah-Bah asked the ASAP cleaning woman to turn out her pockets and accused me of talking in code over the phones, his strange, paranoid fears lost their charm. Now he was just plain mean. Recently, he’d moved out of his spacious, sunny bedroom in Quinta Cindy and into the dark, dank, detached guest quarters. His own private hideout, which he nicknamed the Barnyard. Each morning, he emerged wrapped in a spongy comforter and railed bitterly against our looks of concern.

  With Bah-Bah leaving, I was the Figures Department. It was a big job for one person and Bah-Bah’s sloppiness about entering information into the computer was making the transition increasingly difficult. I found that he hadn’t logged past transfers into the software. He wrote them on pieces of scrap paper and stuffed them into swollen manila folders. Initially he said he’d make himself available for any questions or problems I had. Then he flimflammed. It would be too dangerous, he said, to talk shop or send faxes from Philly. The Feds might be watching.

  Leading an entourage of Latina party girls, Bernard arrived with Maritza. Over the past month, her considerable weight gain had spawned pregnancy rumors. But Dr. Chocolaté, the state-certified brothel’s ob-gyn, confirmed that Maritza was not with child. She was just getting fat. Inevitable, considering how much time she spent with Bernard. Her belly pressed between the button and the hole of her jeans, so she fastened them with a large safety pin.

  “She’s capable of getting very, very heavy,” Bernard said, watching her eat an entire fried-calamari platter. “I have an eye for these things.”

  Moonlit, Bah-Bah looked even more consumptive. “Is island fever contagious?” I asked. He turned his head to me. He managed to find demeaning most everything everyone said to him, and my question was no different. “Fuck you,” he said, and I stared back, sucking drawn butter from my lobster tail.

  Days after Bah-Bah left the island, I arrived at the office at five a.m. to balance the books. It was the only time of day the office was calm enough to concentrate. No fights, ringing phones, shouting of orders, or blaring heavy-metal music. Just Pamela and me entering sports scores into software, tracing transfers, making lists of people late on paying, filing wiring receipts, and organizing our dozens of on-line accounts. In the eight months since the opening, our customer base had grown exponentially, with two hundred–plus players betting between twenty dollars and two hundred thousand dollars on games. More often than not, there were discrepancies—transfers still in progress, botched bets, customer claims—but I wasn’t prepared for what I found this morning.

  “How come we have no money?” I said. I checked the amount on the computer and ripped through Bah-Bah’s figure sheets. Useless, considering every third number was unreadable. Sevens could also be ones, or nines. Confused, I glanced at Pamela. Laboring over three different calculators, she did not look her normal, determined self.

  We spread the printouts across the floor and studied the calculations as though they were cryptic maps that could lead us to buried treasure. How was it that we were making money on paper but had no money in our accounts? In the long hours of heavy silence to follow, we tried to make sense of the available balance: $461.39.

  In walked Bernard, briefcase swinging at his side. He situated himself in front of three monitors and checked the morning odds. “How’d we do yesterday?” he said.

  I approached him, reluctantly. My throat tightened. “Bernard?” I said. “I don’t think we have any money.”

  He reached for the papers I handed him. With each whip of a page, he slouched deeper into his chair.

  “Oh no,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Low funds.”

  I grew agitated. “This is what I’m saying, Bernard: WE DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY!”

  Astonishment. Emergency meetings were called. Wild claims were made. Perhaps there was a bank account we were forgetting, and that’s where all the money was. Maybe it was a hack job. Maybe the Feds had frozen our accounts. Maybe Omar, the quiet, polite guy who worked in marketing, had stolen it. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Come on, you guys. Island fever?!” I said. Bah-Bah had five kids he could barely support. Not to mention his coke addiction. Of course he’d been stealing. The numbers had always added up. Now, suddenly, he was gone, and this number wasn’t real and that number wasn’t real and this guy didn’t get paid and that transfer never took place.

  Bernard dismissed my rant. He felt bad accusing anybody without being absolutely sure. “It could be an honest mistake, Beth. There could be a rational explanation.”

  “Like what?”

  “Could the Internet have stolen it?”

  “The Internet doesn’t steal, Bernard. People do.”

  After the day’s last game, we listened to taped phone calls. The office was packed with cleaning ladies, clerks, the marketing team, and Bernard’s friends. At first, we went through the calls slowly, rewinding and pausing each time we heard something that sounded fishy. But it soon became clear we were wasting our time. There were hundreds of tapes. Our investigation could’ve continued for weeks. And even if we did finger the culprit, what then? We wouldn’t have him beat up or tortured until he coughed up the money, and since whoever it was would know that, all threats were idle. That’s assuming he still had the money. Thieves tend to snort or gamble their booty away in mere hours. And it’s not like we could take legal action. This is what so profoundly sucks about being in Bernard’s position. When roughed up and kicked around, gambling bosses don’t have many options. All they have is each other. When they’re in trouble, gamblers go straight to their friends, not the cops, for help. But those same friends are the ones who often cause the trouble, by lying and embezzling.

  During one of Bernard’s longer Xanax stupors, I went behind his back and called Bah-Bah. On his elm-lined suburban street, hiding in the safety and warmth of his family, he acted shocked about the stuff I was certain he screwed us on days before. When I pressed harder, he asked that I never call his house again. Red hot with anger, I wanted to rip him apart. I wanted to tell him that we had listened to the tapes and overheard him conniving. That we had hired someone to shoot him in his fat, bald head and that someone was on the way to his house at that very moment. But before I could say a word, the line went dead and stayed busy until it was later disconnected.

  To this day, we don’t know if Bah-Bah took the money. Afterward, we heard that he lost one million dollars in an all-night coked-up on-line blackjack spree. We heard he went to rehab for drugs and gambling. Then again. And again. One morning back in New York, I passed a newsstand and saw Bah-Bah’s face smiling at me from the front page of the Daily News. He’d been arrested on charges of conspiracy to defraud the NBA. Federal authorities alleged he paid an NBA referee to throw games. Soon there’d be a trial. Staring at his picture, I found myself wondering if he had a collaborator or, at least, a confidant—his wife, a friend, a dog. If there was anyone left in his life who liked him, anyone whose faith he hadn’t shattered. As much as I disliked Bah-Bah, I
didn’t like the thought of anyone suffering through depositions, court dates, and lingering prison sentences all alone.

  Back at ASAP, however, we knew everything that needed to be known. We were spectacularly broke and owed people money. We tried to save as many jobs as we could, but we had no money to pay anyone. Clerks stopped coming to work. The tech team downstairs sold desks and computers and pocketed the money. Cutting our overhead, we got rid of cars and houses. The hangers-on and the Italian crew fled. Stopping by the whorehouses to give their girlfriends a good-bye kiss, they held the women’s faces in their hands and promised to send for them—which was funny, because it was the same thing I said to Otis before I left. I moved in with Bernard. We drove to and from work together, ate together, and worried together. Barely able to stay a step ahead of calamity, we tried to prepare for what came next: the struggle, the hustle. The phone calls.

  “Sports, Beth. Name and password?”

  “Six two four five mortgage. You fuckers owe me! Sixty fucking grand!”

  “Sir,” I said. “I’m sorry. We have a lack of available funds.”

  “Sports, Bernard, who’s this?… I’ve been desperately trying to get a hold of you. I’m in desperate need of cash flow and I’m absolutely buried. Listen to me. I can’t pay people! It’s embarrassing. I need help.”

  “Sports, Beth. Name and password?”

  “Three nine four oh plane crash. How can a book go broke during the middle of fucking football season? Tell me that, bitch.”

  “Oh, like you’re really going to get paid now, talking to me like that.”

  Click.

  “Sports, Bernard, who’s this?… Listen, I need some cash. I really need cash. I’m absolutely, totally disappointed. I’m being so conservative it’s sickening. Will you please find me some cash? Please?”

  “Sports, Beth. Name and password?”

  “Two four four four Dinky.”

  Dink, on speakerphone.

  “Beth. I know you’ll feel like a deserter if you leave, but it’s time. ASAP’s done. You need to leave the business and get on with your life.”

  The great care with which these words were said twisted my heart. “I wouldn’t leave you if you were in this position,” I said.

  “I’d never be in that position. And I’d certainly never put my employees in that position,” Dink said. “Come home. Just for football then you’re fired for good. Six hundred a week and you can live in the condo. Do the math. You don’t save money anyway.”

  “Come home, Bethy!” Grant shouted in the background. “We miss you.”

  “Sports, Bernard, who’s this?… I’m in surrendering mode. Could I meet you at the Miami airport? I need a buck. I know I already owe you a buck but the thing is, my credibility is shot. I’m beat up. I need a buck total. If it doesn’t work out with you, there are no other options. It’s not like I have nothing to sell. On paper I have a hell of a business, but in real life …”

  In real life, Bernard’s wife asked for a divorce. Did she find out about his affair? Did she see the American Express bill? Was she tired of being alone? Bernard couldn’t bring himself to ask her. Whatever the reason, he knew it was his fault. He wondered how he’d be able to pay alimony and child support. He lost his libido. Feeling unworthy, he sent Maritza back to the DR and cut her weekly allowance 10,000 percent. None of Bernard’s friends called to see how he was doing. They were all too afraid he’d ask them for a loan.

  In real life, it was me, Wladi, Bernard, and a bunch of empty workstations. I doodled and wished we had something to blow up for insurance. Bernard clipped his nose hair, pressed the opposite nostril, and blew out the trimmings before he inhaled them. Wladi spoke of heaven and redemption. He prayed for God to help us prepare for the hard times ahead.

  In the end, God offered us something so much better than guidance. He got us a bailout. A sports book in Costa Rica agreed to pay our customers. In return, the customers would be theirs and Bernard would work for the outfit, helping them tweak their mathematics. Though I was relieved for Bernard, I didn’t want to go to Costa Rica. I was burned out and I missed Jeremy and wanted to go home, wherever home was. But seeing Bernard in such an altered state and overhearing his phone calls with his psychologist, I couldn’t bring myself to leave him.

  San José was just as much a dump as it was when I visited with Dink, three years earlier. Like fugitives, Bernard and I moved into an anonymous two-bedroom efficiency and Wladi moved in next door. The neighborhood was loud and the wet air-conditioning made everything damp and moldy. We woke up and counted the mosquito bites. For dinner, the three of us sat on the outside curb and ate soggy empanadas.

  Men with machine guns guarded the building we worked in. The new boss questioned everything Bernard did. He didn’t appreciate Bernard’s genius. He didn’t let Bernard bet millions. It made me feel embarrassed; it was like watching your father work a job that’s beneath him.

  The sun set at four p.m. It rained for days on end. At night, I cleared bugs from the tub so I could take a bath. Centipedes and roaches I smashed with my flip-flop. But the beetles were too colorful to kill. They lay on their backs, kicking, and I admired the designs on their bellies. Picking them up, one by one, I wondered how something with wings—something that knew how to fly—could find itself, night after night, upside down, flailing, fluttering, and stuck. And I didn’t know for whom the image spoke better, Bernard or me.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sucker

  I arrived in New York to find a newly groomed Otis napping at the foot of Jeremy’s bed, right where I’d left him ten months before. Delighted by my early retirement, Jeremy prepared healthy dinners and gave me access to his laptop, complete with my own log-in. He’d fixed the tub’s drain and grouted the tile for my evening baths. I found fresh-cut flowers on the bedside table. I loved the pampering. But despite how brightly the days started out, before bed, as we lay close together, I could not keep remorse at bay.

  “I totally abandoned Bernard,” I said, sobbing into Jeremy’s chest hair. “He’s unhappy so he’s eating and getting fat again. He’s going to die.”

  Jeremy smoothed my ponytail. “Bernard’ll be fine. He’ll get his shit together.”

  “But I haven’t even told you the worst part. Remember how we left the island in such a rush? We accidentally forgot someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Lionel.”

  “You hate Lionel!”

  “So! Just because you hate somebody doesn’t mean you abandon them. Wladi heard he’s addicted to crack and lives in the McDonald’s parking lot. He has no one! We left him behind!”

  “Babe, relax. It wasn’t Vietnam. You didn’t leave anyone behind.”

  Jeremy’s reassurances helped loosen the tiny knots in my heart. Eventually, having him and Otis back in my life convinced me that I’d made the right choice by leaving Costa Rica. In his tenth-floor apartment, Jeremy and I got to know each other by simply spending time together. It felt strange after months of expressing ourselves through high-emotion love letters. The routine of daily life together marked a drastic shift in our relationship. I looked forward to packing Jeremy’s lunches, doing his laundry, and helping him think of story ideas. I loved soaking in the bathtub and watching him shave at the sink. The only problem with this new, exquisite little world was that I needed a job. I was getting restless, and, of course, I needed the money.

  “No dealerships are hiring,” I said, searching the classifieds. “Do you think cleaning people’s teeth would be gross?”

  As usual, Jeremy approached the morning paper fretfully, as though it were an outstanding bill he hadn’t the money to pay. Living in constant fear of getting scooped, he winced with each turn of the page. Only when he realized he was in the clear did he allow himself coffee and small talk.

  “I thought you were going to apply to journalism school,” he said.

  “Applying to school doesn’t pay the bills,” I said, considering the colorful adult entert
ainment ads. But it was the tiny “Miscellaneous” job that caught my attention: boxing trainer needed to help start a program for overweight kids. Fun and physical, I thought, but kind of square. Still, the boxing enticed me, and I thought it would make for a nice transition over to the clean-nosed side of the law.

  At a sports bar in midtown, I interviewed with the program director. Dave Greenberg was tall and goofy in his oversized leather jacket, Jets ball cap, and Jets wristwatch. He asked for a copy of my résumé and I hesitated. Earlier, I’d decided I would be honest about my jobs. I had plenty to offer any boss and if gambling put a bad taste in their mouth, screw ’em. But face-to-face, my confidence wilted. Professional gambling, bookmaking, and offshore betting businesses might give pause to anyone, especially job interviewers in the straight world. More often than not, it’s easier to make something up on the spot. In hindsight, I probably should have.

  “Actually,” I said, pulling my hair across my upper lip like a moustache, “I don’t really have a résumé.”

  He asked if I had any experience.

  Did I ever.

  I highlighted my qualifications: a 7-and-3 boxing record, a quick jab, and a soft spot for chubsters. Looking bored, Dave got lazy and no longer tried to hide the glances at my breasts. I knew that I was losing him so I took a chance and mentioned sports betting. The words jerked his gaze back to eye level. He looked starstruck, as if it weren’t me sitting across from him, but Vinnie Testaverde.