Paydirt

by Paul Levine

  "Nightlife's a menace. He raped that perfume clerk two years ago, and now he's done it again. It's our fault, Martin. Yours and mine. We're as guilty as he is."

  Kingsley stared a long, hard moment at his son-in-law, his eyes dead and cold as stones in a mountain creek. "My fault?" Disbelief in his voice.

  "We could have put a stop to it. We could have helped put him away."

  "This woman the other night, this barmaid, went back to the hotel room with him, didn't she?" Kingsley asked in a cross examination tone.

  "Yes, but she didn't consent to having sex. He beat her up."

  "Maybe she liked it rough," Kingsley suggested. "Women these days…"

  "He raped her!" Bobby shouted. It was the first time he'd ever raised his voice to his father-in-law, and he felt his hands tremble. "He told me so! He laughed about it. You want to hear about the drugs, the young girls he gets to his hotel room half blitzed, how he humiliates them, dirties them."

  Kingsley's ice-blue eyes narrowed and he thrust his chin upward at a pugnacious angle. "For Christ's sake, Robert, get your priorities straight. Your job is to protect the good name of this franchise."

  "Not any more." Bobby shook his head. "It's time to do what's right, Martin. He's got to own up to what he's done, and so do we."

  "We?"

  "Both of us, Martin."

  "Why, you piss ant!" You want to start looking for a real job in this economy?"

  "No matter what happens to me, I'll make sure the truth gets out."

  "Let me give you some Texas advice, young man." Kingsley's voice was low, his features as hard as granite. "When you're standing chin-deep in manure, you're best to keep your mouth shut."

  Kingsley's rage sizzled from every pore, like cold butter dropped on a hot skillet. "I have a dossier on you, fellow. I could get you disbarred, tarred, feathered, and strung up like a nine-point buck on the first day of hunting season. And don't think just because you're married to my daughter I won't do it. She's my blood, not you. You're the hired help."

  A delicious feeling coursed through Bobby's veins. He no longer felt fear. Now, he was indestructible. With each insult, he grew stronger, with each threat, braver. "Do what you want to me, Martin, but you mess with the justice system, I'll bring you down."

  Kingsley stared hard at him, the fury burning like coal in his eyes. "You ungrateful piece of shit. I made you what you are today."

  A derisive laugh exploded out of Bobby. "Right, Martin. You made me a cheap carbon copy of yourself. But I'm a lousy you. I can't lie, cheat, and steal and still smile all the way to the bank. I can't be the biggest phony in town and still sleep at night."

  Kingsley moved quickly for a man his age. He was out of his chair and around the desk before Bobby could stand. He grabbed Bobby by the shirt collar and yanked him to his feet. Their faces were jammed together, and Bobby could smell the coffee on his breath. "You've got ten seconds to apologize and get the hell back to your office or I'll thrash your hide before firing you."

  Bobby felt lightheaded and giddy. He laughed, which seemed to infuriate Kingsley even more. "What's so damn funny, you jackass!"

  "You are, Martin. You're a bully and a blowhard, and you don't scare me."

  "You self-righteous son-of-a-bitch!" Kingsley shoved Bobby into a shelving unit. Trophies tumbled to the floor, and a football-shaped crystal ornament shattered on its first bounce.

  Bobby rebounded from the shelves, his knees buckling. When he regained his balance, his vision was filled with the sight of Kingsley's fist coming toward his chin. He slipped his head to the right, and the punch grazed his temple. Instinctively, Bobby threw a punch of his own, but it was a looping right hand with too little power behind it.

  "You swing like a girl!" Kingsley taunted him, assuming a boxer's pose with a left hand lead, standing straight up like some bare knuckled-champion from the Nineteenth Century. "C'mon girlie. Let's see what you've got."

  All the pent-up frustrations ignited a fire inside Bobby. He wanted to hit Kingsley, wanted to scar him, wanted him to feel the pain of Janet Petty. He snapped out a left jab that caught Kingsley on the cheekbone and rocked him backwards. Kingsley responded with a left hand of his own, but Bobby blocked it. They bobbed and weaved a moment in imitation of countless prizefighters, and then Bobby flicked a straight left that glanced off Kingsley's forehead.

  Before he could follow up, Kingsley dug a short right hook into Bobby's gut. Bobby gagged and stepped back, bending at the waist, sucking for air.

  "You're soft!" Kingsley ranted. "You've got the belly of a sow."

  Bobby hunched his shoulders, lowered his head and barreled into the older man. He knocked Kingsley backwards, and they toppled onto the desk, then slid to the floor amidst overturned files and fluttering papers. Bobby bear-hugged Kingsley who flailed away at him, unable to get any power into the short punches, but finally loosening Bobby's grip by gouging both thumbs into his eyes.

  Pain shot through Bobby's skull as he scrambled to get to his feet. Blinking furiously, he turned toward Kingsley, afraid he was about to be sucker punched. Instead, Kingsley was reaching into a desk drawer. A second later, he pointed an ancient long-barreled Colt. 45 at Bobby. The gun looked like a cannon and was shaking visibly in Kingsley's hand. If Kingsley's trigger finger twitched, Bobby feared he'd have a hole the size of a fist in his chest.

  "You're not going to shoot me, Martin."

  "Not today, maybe. Today, I'm just gonna-"

  "You can't," Bobby said. "I quit."

  10

  The Piano Player in the Whorehouse

  Bobby stormed out, making one stop on his way to the parking lot, liberating a bottle of Jack Daniel's from the antique sideboard in his own office. He got into the Lexus, drove to a donut shop, and then to the stadium, empty except for three workers repairing the artificial turf. Bobby carried his bottle of bourbon and bag of cream-filled donuts into the stands and climbed to the upper deck, shaded by the partial roof.

  He sat there for hours, working it over in his mind. He had taken a stand on principle. But was that enough? Would that salve his soul? As the amber liquid warmed his insides, the more grandiose his plans became. He would write a book disclosing the evils of corporate greed, the sham of the justice system, the hypocrisy of the league. He would lecture at great universities, offering himself as a witness to society's failings. He remained sober long enough to realize that his fantasies were self-indulgent meanderings.

  He was out of a job. Or was he? Christine would try to salvage the situation, have the men shake hands and make up.

  What should I do? How can I do what's right for me when it might not be right for Chrissy and Scott?

  All he knew was that he couldn't go back to the status quo.

  His secretary called him three times on the cellular, telling him that Larry Walters, the prosecutor, was trying to reach him. Probably wanted to know when he would surrender Jackson. It didn't feel as if he'd quit his job. Nobody knew about it except Kingsley and him. Just after noon, as the sun peeked through the hole in the stadium's roof, the phone rang again.

  "Bad news," the Assistant District Attorney said when Bobby answered.

  "Is there any other kind?" Bobby said.

  "Janet Petty got her hands on a bottle of sedatives and attempted suicide last night."

  "Oh no. Oh God no." The news jolted him out of his boozy haze. He felt like a tree that had been struck by lightning, his limbs splintered, his trunk blazing with pain. His mouth, at first tasting sour from the bourbon, now seemed filled with ashes.

  "She's gonna make it, though she'll have a five-alarm headache when she comes to. And brain damage can't be ruled out. This pretty much complicates the bond hearing, and I didn't want to sandbag you when you brought him in."

  "I won't be bringing him in," Bobby said. "I come to buy Nightlife, not to represent him."

  Christine hobbled into the kitchen and was unpacking the takeout Thai cartons when she heard Scott call from the den
.

  "Daddy's on TV!" he cried out, excitedly.

  It had been a long day, and she hadn't seen Bobby since he left the house early that morning. She had still been on the fringes of sleep, but she remembered him leaning down and kissing her. What had he said?

  "I love you, Chrissy. No matter what happens, I love you and pray that you'll always love me."

  Or had she dreamed that? Just before noon, she had buzzed his office to see if he wanted to grab lunch, but his secretary said she hadn't seen him. Chrissy tried her father's office, but he had been tied up in meetings with Nightlife Jackson's agent and a crisis team of P.R. experts.

  Now she walked into the den, licking her fingers, tasting the garlicky sauce of the chopped pork Nam Sod. Suddenly, everything was wrong. Scott had tears in his eyes. Bobby's face filled the entire screen, a microphone under his chin. He was sweating, an unruly tousle of brown hair falling into his eyes, which leapt from side-to-side.

  "The Dallas Mustangs aren't American's Team, they're America's Most Wanted," Bobby thundered. "They're coke-sniffing, bar-busting bullies, bums, and rapists."

  "All of them?" a reporter asked.

  "Of course not. But enough for loyal fans to question why they put up with criminality, immorality, violence against women, and a general disregard of the rules the rest of us must live by."

  Omigod, no! Bobby, don't do this!

  From out of camera range, a flurry of questions were shouted. "What about Nightlife Jackson?"

  "He's a dangerous, brutal, multiple rapist who should be put away," Bobby said. "He'd be in jail now if I hadn't suborned perjury in his first case."

  A gasp went through the throng of reporters who then buzzed with more questions, but in the babble, the words were indecipherable. Bobby reached into a briefcase and pulled out a stack of documents that he began handing out to the reporters who fought for their copies.

  "I've prepared a list of cases in which my actions were unethical and numerous incidents involving the players that were covered up," he said.

  Christine's breath caught in her throat. She felt as if hot knives had pierced her heart. For a moment, her anguish was so intense, it was if the man she was watching-the man she loved-had died in front of her eyes.

  Oh, Bobby. You think you're baptizing yourself in purifying waters, but you're drowning, and there's nothing I can do to save you.

  "Why's Daddy talking that way?" Scott asked. She rushed to his side on the sofa and wrapped her arms around him, trying to shield him from harm.

  More shouts, each reporter clambering to grab the sword Bobby would dive onto next. He ignored the pack of jackals and continued on his own. "I've bribed witnesses, used political influence, and violated every one of the Canons of Ethics and a few more that were never written down."

  "What about Martin Kingsley?" someone asked. "Did he know?"

  Christine held her breath.

  No Bobby! Please!

  "I was the piano player in the whorehouse," Bobby said, "but he called the tune. I never did anything without his express approval."

  Christine fumbled for the remote in a crevice of the sofa, found it, and clicked off the TV. She sank to the floor, her legs crossed beneath her. She felt numb, anaesthetized.

  How could you do it? How could you do this to Scott and to me?

  In that moment, she knew that their lives would never be the same, and the numbness gave way to the lacerating white heat of anger.

  PART TWO

  The Reluctant Bookie

  "If the Super Bowl is the ultimate, why are they playing it again next year?"

  — Duane Thomas, former Dallas Cowboys running back

  11

  Bookmaker and Son

  Two years later-Friday, January 27-Miami

  Were the hell was the Cantor?

  Bobby had been calling for three days, but the old bookie had disappeared, and no one could find him. Bobby had checked the Lincoln Road cigar store that was the front for the Cantor's bookmaking operation. Closed. He'd checked the dog tracks, the jai-alai frontons, and the good seats at the Panthers and Heat games. No sign of Saul (the Cantor) Kaplan.

  He'd asked some of his own betting customers, Murray Kravetz, the sportscaster, Jose de la Portilla, the chef, and Philippe Jean-Juste, the Santero priest. Nobody had seen the little man with the turkey-wattled neck.

  Now, at the wheel of his old Lincoln limo, Bobby was headed toward Calder Race Track with Scott by his side. Maybe the Cantor was at the track. Where the hell else would a bookie be on a cool, clear Friday afternoon when bettors believe the future is as bright as the Florida sun?

  "What if Mr. Kaplan didn't lay off the bet and the Mustangs covered the spread?" Scott asked, as they crawled along the Palmetto Expressway behind a rumbling garbage truck.

  Bobby gripped the steering wheel with sweaty palms and fought off a queasiness in his stomach. He hated to admit it, but he was a lousy bookie. Scott, a sixth grader, could pick the ponies better than he could and knew more about beating the point spread in football.

  "Don't even think about it," Bobby said. "Vinnie LaBarca would make sushi out of me."

  How the hell had he gotten into this fix? So much had happened so quickly. Back in Dallas, he'd lost his job, his wife, and his ticket to practice law in a matter of months. He thought he'd had a heart attack, too, but the doctors said the piercing chest pains were stress-related.

  Returning home to South Florida, he found there were few job opportunities for a disbarred mouthpiece. He got his chauffeur's license and worked off hours for Goldy Goldberg, an aging bookmaker, who eventually turned over a piece of business. Then, just four days earlier, Bobby had logged the biggest bet of his short, unspectacular career as a reluctant bookmaker.

  On Monday morning, when Las Vegas made Dallas a seven-point favorite over Green Bay in Sunday's NFC Championship game, a mobster named Vinnie LaBarca had stopped at Bobby's sidewalk table at the News Cafe. He was in his mid-forties, short and stocky, with a square head that looked like a cinder block on his sloping shoulders. He wore a gray Armani suit over a black t-shirt and looked disdainfully at Bobby's plate of yogurt and fruit.

  "Can you handle six hundred large?" LaBarca asked.

  Bobby wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. LaBarca usually bet a couple thousand per game, but nothing like this.

  "Six hundred thousand dollars?" Bobby whispered. It was a sum that demanded the respect of a hushed voice.

  "Yeah. I'll take the Mustangs minus seven. Can you handle it?"

  I can't even handle a new transmission for the Lincoln. I can't handle the rent or my son's tuition.

  Bobby's pulse quickened with equal measures of excitement and fear, as if he were walking a tightrope over a fiery pit. This was his chance to get out of debt and to fight for his son. How could he insist Scott stay with him in Miami half the year if he couldn't even afford the boy's schooling? He was being eaten alive in the court proceedings, but this could change everything. If he could get the tuition paid, he could show the judge some stability.

  "I got it covered," Bobby shrugged, trying to sound street smart. "Six hundred large on Dallas minus seven over Green Bay."

  LaBarca studied him with a gaze the wolf reserves for the sheep. "I've only been stiffed once by a bookie."

  "Yeah?"

  "I sliced him up, used the pieces as chum off the stern of my Hatteras."

  "I get it, Vinnie. I've got no intention of becoming shark bait."

  Later, when LaBarca had left, Bobby called the Cantor to lay off the bet. There was no chance of attracting anywhere near enough money on Green Bay to balance his own books. The ideal situation, Bobby had learned quickly, was to book an equal amount of action on both sides. With a "splitter," the bookie was assured a profit because he charged ten per cent vigorish on the bets his customers lost, but paid only the amount of the bet itself when the customer won. So a customer risks a hundred ten dollars to win a hundred, while the bookie risks a hundred to win a hundred-te
n. The cautious bookie isn't betting at all. He's simply matching opposing bettors and taking what amounts to a broker's commission. By balancing his books, he can never lose. When Bobby booked a few thousand dollars on each game, it wasn't difficult to lay off a little here, a little there, and get splitters on most of the games, eliminating risk, earning his vig. But six hundred thousand dollars! No way.

  When they had met earlier in the week, the Cantor had agreed to take it all, maybe spread around pieces to other bookies in Tampa and New Orleans.

  "What do you want from it?" the Cantor had asked, eyeing Bobby suspiciously. He was nearly eighty, a small man with parched white skin who always dressed in a seersucker suit and polka dot bow-tie.

  "Eighty per cent of the vig, forty-two thousand dollars."

  "You gonif! You got nothing at risk."

  "Once you balance the books, neither do you," Bobby responded. "It's just a question of dividing the profits."

  "What a holdupnik! I'll give you sixty-per cent of the vig, thirty-six thousand, not a penny more."

  "It's a deal."

  Was it ever! Win or lose the bet on Dallas, as long as the Cantor's books were balanced, they'd pocket the vigorish on the losing bets. But Bobby hadn't heard from the Cantor since Monday afternoon. If he hadn't come through, if he hadn't laid off the bet, if no one was backing the huge wager…

  If, if, if.

  Just thinking about it tightened his chest as if a hand clenched at his heart. If the bet hadn't been laid off, Bobby would be standing naked, a bettor himself, putting everything at risk. The bet could bankrupt him several times over.

  No, a bet that could get me killed!

  A shudder ran through him like a sudden gust across still water. He tried to chase the thought away with sheer will power, telling himself the Cantor must have laid off the bet, then hopped over to the Bahamas for the week. He'd said it was a done deal. Hadn't he?

  Bobby longed to pass the garbage truck but doubted the limo could handle it. He'd bought the old clunker from a dusty car lot in South Miami. In the Miami heat, the radiator was exhaling puffs of steam. The exterior had been midnight blue at one time but now was a splotchy gray-green and, with its dings and dents, looked like a survivor of a meteor storm. The leather upholstery was dry and cracked, and the suspension sagged, but it was good enough for teenagers headed for the prom, Brazilian tourists on a budget, and out-of-town salesmen trolling the strip clubs.