by Paul Levine
"If the Cantor didn't lay off the bet, there might be a bright side," Bobby said. Looking for a silver lining in the shit storm of gray clouds.
"What's that, Dad?"
"I could win the entire six hundred thousand if the Mustangs don't cover."
"Plus the vig," Scott went on, knowingly.
Bobby smiled. At thirteen, Scott had grown into a lanky, cute, towheaded kid at the stage between adorable childhood and wise-ass adolescence.
"Right. Six hundred-sixty-thousand with the vig," Bobby said, wistfully. "No more polishing this old wreck limo every Saturday afternoon."
"Hey Dad, you only polish the right-hand side."
"That's the side the customers get in and out of," Bobby said, wondering if the limo would overheat before they got to the race track. It struck him then, just how far he had fallen. "Does it bother you that your Dad is a chauffeur?"
"No way! It's kind of cool. Most of the kids at school, their Dads are doctors, lawyers, or brokers. Total drudges."
"I don't mind driving, either. It gives me time to think."
And to listen. Husbands who cheat on their wives, brokers who churn their clients' accounts, employees who embezzle. His customers treated him as if he weren't there, and sometimes Bobby felt invisible.
Blame it on the chauffeur's uniform, the no-wrinkle polyester black pants with the silky stripe, the cheap white shirt and dark tie pulled up tight, and of course, the coup de grace, the cap, which creased his wavy brown hair and made his ears look like catchers' mitts. It all screamed "working class guy." Women looked right through him and men acted as if they expected him to carry their luggage. Which, of course, he did. Still, it was better than being Martin Kingsley's errand boy, better than toting his garbage to the curb and calling it roses.
"So what do you think, Scott? Hypothetically. What are Green Bay's chances of covering the spread and making us rich?"
"Fogetaboudit!" Scott called out. "Green Bay will be hurtin' for certin'."
"You sure?"
"I hate to tell you, Dad, but the Mustangs will win and cover the seven."
"You're their number one fan," Bobby said. "I can't rely on you to set the point spread."
"Sure you can. I used my computer to manage the strength indicators. If you look at scoring margins against teams with winning records, you'll see that-"
"Okay, okay, but I didn't have a choice. I had to give LaBarca what he wanted. That's why I needed the Cantor to lay off the bet just so I could pick up a sweet piece of the pie."
The Cantor. Where the hell are you, anyway?
Bobby's cellular rang, startling him. He eased the old Lincoln limo onto the berm of the road and looked at the display: "Private Call."
"Hello," he said, picking up.
"Bobby, there you are!"
His heart seized up at the sound of her voice.
"Where have you been?" Christine asked. "I've been leaving messages."
"Chrissy! I've been meaning to call you."
Regret stabbed at him like blades piercing his skin. How he missed her.
"Mr. Montgomery called from the school again," she said. "Scott's tuition hasn't been paid."
"Got it covered," he said, just as he had to Vinnie LaBarca. In truth, nothing was covered. His life was a series of uncovered bets and unpaid bills. "I'm going to pay the first semester and second semester in one lump sum."
"Bobby, you know Scott's transferring to Berkshire Prep for the second semester."
"No," he said, refusing to acknowledge what the Texas judge ordered over his objections.
"I'll be paying for everything," Christine said.
"It's not the money, and you know it. I don't want Scott shipped off to some boarding school fifteen hundred miles away."
Bobby was getting a headache. The limo belched out fumes and sputtered its discontent. The race track was ten minutes away, and cars whizzed past, kicking up dust.
"It's the only way to maximize his potential," she said.
"How, by taking him away from me?"
"No Bobby. You're a wonderful father."
"Then why do it?"
"We've been through this," Christine said. "Scott's off the charts in math. He needs a special environment to nurture him."
"We could nurture him. Together."
"We're not going to rehash that," she said with a sigh. "And what we're doing now, splitting the school year between Dallas and Miami, is crazy. The shrinks all say so."
"Then give me full custody."
"Dammit, Bobby. Can you write a check to the school or should I do it? I don't mind advancing you the money if-"
"Whoops, going through a tunnel," Bobby said, scratching his fingernails across the mouthpiece. "Losing you."
No, strike that. Lost you.
He clicked off, eased the car into gear and headed for the race track.
"Dad, I don't want to go to some skanky prison for math geeks."
"You won't have to."
"'Cause I like hanging with you, Dad."
Bobby walked a fine line as a divorced father, trying not to interfere with Scott's relationship with his mother while battling to influence how the boy was raised. It wasn't easy, not against the strong-willed Christine and her belligerent father. Bobby never doubted that Martin Kingsley loved his grandson. Scott was his flesh and blood, the only child of his only child. Unlike his material possessions, however, Scott was no longer under Kingsley's control, and that must have rankled the old man. The fact that Scott loved his Dad and emulated him must have been a prickly burr under Kingsley's saddle.
The bastard hates me more than he despises Democrats, taxes, and the Washington Redskins.
Bobby's mind drifted back to that day in front of the cameras two years ago, the day that flipped his life over like a tortoise onto its back.
"What were you thinking?" Christine had demanded when he came home, his accusations filling every living room in Dallas. "After all my father's done for you, this is how you repay him! Where's your loyalty?"
"Where's your heart?" he replied. "Is it with your father or with me?"
"Is that an ultimatum? Are you forcing me to choose between the two of you?"
To Bobby, it should have been a simple choice. He was the man she loved, the father of her son. Her father was corrupt and tainted everything he touched. Couldn't she see that?
"I'm divorcing you," she said, each word crackling like a rifle shot. Her eyes glistened, but her voice never wavered, and her spine stayed straight as a spike.
12
Something Ain't Kosher
Father and son passed the Homestretch Cafe and climbed the steps to the grandstand. It was a glorious sun-baked Florida day of blue skies and steady breezes. Still, Bobby was out of sorts, and he popped antacids to calm his knotted stomach.
Where's the Cantor? Why the hell hasn't he returned my calls?
Bobby was desperate to know that he wasn't on the hook-a grappling hook-for six hundred thousand. Then he could enjoy the afternoon with his son. He wanted Scott to smell the sweet saltiness of the horses in the paddock, then treat the boy to some stone crabs in the Turf Club, maybe sneak him into the casino to play the one-armed bandits.
But the real reason they were here was to find the Cantor.
Where the hell is he?
Why is he ducking me?
Bobby had started to worry on Tuesday morning when the Vegas oddsmakers moved the line half a point. Then Dallas was favored by seven-and-one-half. The half point, he knew, was to prevent the game from being a "push," in which the bet is canceled if the final score falls right on the point spread. At seven points, there'd be a "push" at 14-7, 21–14, 24–17, and a bunch of other common scores.
Bobby hoped that the movement didn't also signify a ton of money being bet on Dallas, so that the oddsmakers would have to keep adjusting their lines to balance the books. Wednesday brought more bad news, as the line jumped a full point to eight-and-a-half. Then, yesterday, it crawled up anothe
r half point. Now, Dallas was favored by a startling nine points.
If the Cantor hadn't moved quickly, he never would have been able to lay off the mobster's bet-Dallas as a seven point favorite. Bettors wanting to take the favored Mustangs today had to give the bookies nine points, not seven. To a savvy bettor or bookie the two-point swing was monumental. No one would take Green Bay today with only a seven-point cushion when he could get nine. Bobby prayed the Cantor had laid off the bet early in the week.
Once in the clubhouse, Bobby asked all the regulars if the Cantor had been around, but nobody had seen him all week.
With Scott at his side, Bobby walked toward the parimutuel windows. They checked the barber shop and the rest rooms, the shoe shine stand and the hot dog vendor, even the shop selling authentic horseshoes, ingrained with dirt. They ignored the mile-and-an-eighth allowance race going on below them, the bettors whooping from the grandstand.
As the horses were jitterbugging into the gate for the next race, bookmaker and son headed for the concourse, Bobby's thoughts wandering toward Dallas. Sometimes he wondered what life would have been like if he'd stayed. Lunches at the Mansion on Turtle Creek, drinks at the Stadium Club. He'd still have Chrissy. The family would be together. Why hadn't he just sucked it up and played Kingsley's game?
Because I just couldn't.
But what had he accomplished? He'd lost his wife and impoverished himself. Nightlife Jackson was still playing, Kingsley having hired a slick attorney to do what Bobby wouldn't. Faced with embarrassing questions about her past sex life, harassed by the news media and wanting to leave Dallas, Janet Petty dropped the case for a small cash settlement.
If I had to do it all over again, I would. If only I could have gotten my freedom without losing Chrissy.
Bobby and Scott walked along the concourse where bettors lined up at the windows clutching Racing Forms, like Bibles, in sweaty hands. Still no sign of the Cantor. Bobby was fighting against an edginess that buzzed inside him like a bee against a window.
They paused at a refreshment stand so Scott could order a Cuban sandwich-roast pork and ham with cheese and pickles on white, crusty bread-while Bobby scanned the area, looking for the Cantor. They walked past the fifty-dollar window, the bell ringing, bets closing, aged bettors scurrying back to their seats, cigars clamped in teeth, stubby pencils tucked behind ears.
They watched a stakes race, Bobby at first ignoring Scott's pleas to let him bet on the one-eight perfecta, then avoiding the boy's told-you-so smirk when the combination paid fifty-six dollars. Then they headed down to the paddock.
He popped three more antacids into his mouth, but still, he felt as if hamsters were running a treadmill in his stomach. Not only did Bobby fear for himself, he felt he had let down his son. If he couldn't pay the bills, he'd lose joint custody and the boy's grandfather would have even greater access to Scott. The bastard would try to mold Scott into younger version of himself.
Bobby looked toward Scott, his heart aching with love. The boy's dirty blond hair radiated in the afternoon sun as he stood on the paddock railing, leaning toward a jittery bay which could have been descended from wild mustangs.
"Hey Dad, isn't that Mr. Kaplan?" Scott pointed to a far corner of the paddock where a shriveled little man in a seersucker suit and a Panama hat watched the horses prance through the moist soil.
"Saul!" Bobby called out. The Cantor looked up, made eye contact, then gingerly slipped between the rails of a fence and disappeared into the open door of a stable.
What the hell!
Bobby took off, vaulting the fence, shouting back at Scott. "Wait here!"
He caught sight of the Cantor, waddling more than running, ducking out of one red-paneled stable and into another. "Saul! Stop!" Bobby called after him.
Bobby ran through the open door of the stable, horses filling stalls on either side of an earthen walkway. Flies buzzed, and the air was tangy with horse sweat and horse droppings. A chestnut mare kicked at her stall, and an Indian red stallion across the way responded with a plaintive whinny. But the Cantor was neither seen nor heard.
Bobby hurried between the rows of stalls, peering into each one, scratching the noses of several horses. He was near the end when a pile of straw seemed to move inside a stall occupied by a large seal brown horse with a jet black mane and tail. The door to the stall was slightly ajar.
Bobby grabbed a pitchfork from against the wall and entered the stall, sidestepping a mound of droppings. Gently, he pushed the pitchfork blades into the straw pile. "Saul, I'm going to feed you to the horses and any leftovers go to Vinnie LaBarca's sharks."
"Ow!" Suddenly, the Cantor, Panama hat still weirdly in place, burst from the straw pile, spitting dust and expletives, his Adam's apple bobbing like a cork in the ocean. "You momzer! It's not bad enough there's rats in here, you gotta stab me, you nogoodnik!"
"Why are you hiding from me?" Bobby demanded.
The old man blinked from behind his thick eyeglasses, looking like an owl aggravated at being awakened by the sun. "Because I'm not a brave man."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
The Cantor calmed down and looked dolefully at Bobby. His face was speckled with age spots, and he was barely above five feet, even in his elevated alligator loafers. His sparse white hair was matted with straw, and his wattled neck quivered. "You know why they call me the Cantor?"
"I don't know. I figured maybe you went to seminary, or whatever you call it."
"Yeshiva? Not me. I'm the Cantor because every time I'm arrested or subpoenaed, I sing like it's Yom Kippur. Like it's Kol Nidre, I sing."
"What are you saying?"
"Once the line moved, I couldn't lay off your six hundred dimes, and I've been afraid to tell you. I like you Bobby, so I couldn't look you in the eyes and tell you that I let you down. And now, I'm scared to death Vinnie LaBarca's gonna make you into chopped liver."
Bobby tossed the pitchfork into the pile of straw, and the brown horse whinnied. " You're scared? What about me?"
"What I can't figure out, why'd LaBarca place a bet like that with a little pisher like you? For that kind of money, why didn't he go straight to the sports books in Vegas?"
It's a question Bobby had asked himself, but he thought he'd figured it out. "You bet that kind of money out there, they withhold taxes, report it to the IRS. He wanted to go incognito, that's all."
"Yeah, maybe." The Cantor removed his eyeglasses and dusted the lenses with his shirttail. "But all week long, the line keeps moving and I keep asking myself, 'Why did Vinnie LaBarca come to Bobby Gallagher, whose ex-father-in-law just happens to own the Dallas Mustangs?'"
"Okay, Saul, tell me."
"I don't know Bobby, but if you ask me, something ain't kosher in Dallas."
13
Living Large
Saturday, January 28-Dallas
Martin Kingsley drummed his lacquered nails on his mahogany desk and scanned the financial reports in front of him. Attendance figures, quarterly revenues, annual projections, income from local radio and network television, even sales of nachos and salsa. Revenue up a healthy thirteen per cent. But expenses…expenses were killing him.
Signing the free agents last year, then re-signing the veterans ready to bolt, gave him highest payroll in the league. Kingsley's file cabinets were stuffed with players' contracts so complex it would take a room full of Philadelphia lawyers to figure out how he was circumventing the salary cap, if not outright violating it.
The financials showed he was losing buckets of money on America's Team. But to hell with it! It's worth every last dollar, he told himself. They were just one win away from the Big Dance, the Super Bowl, and he could feel the atmosphere at Valley Ranch crackling with anticipation. Tomorrow was the NFC championship game, and his senses tingled with an electric buzz.
Damn, it's a fine day to be alive and be a Texan.
He'd had his annual physical earlier in the week, and the doctor pronounced him a remarkable specimen for his
sixty-seven years. "You've got the heart of a lion and the prostate of a teenager." His long mane of white hair was brushed straight back, and today, wearing a tailored jet-black suit coat with silver piping, he felt vigorous enough to spar a few rounds in the gym or rope and brand some ornery livestock.
He considered himself a man who had damn near everything. There was only one missing element needed to fulfill his life.
I gotta get me a Super Bowl ring…the biggest, brightest Texas-sized ring they ever made.
All his energies were directed toward that one goal, and his assets were being drained for it. If they beat Green Bay tomorrow, they'd be on the threshold. But something else was gnawing at him, distracting him. The unfinished business of Robert Gallagher. It should have been finished two years ago. He'd crushed the little turd into dust and expected him to blow away like a West Texas tumbleweed. Would have too, if Christine hadn't agreed to that asinine split custody deal.
What a damn fool settlement! With Judge Bonifay-my golf partner for Christ's sake-we could have stripped the bastard of all his rights to Scott.
He still fumed thinking about it, Christine playing King Solomon with his grandson. He'd warned her there'd be trouble. Now, the shyster was refusing to return Scott from Florida and send him to boarding school. This time, he'd take care of Gallagher his way. Kingsley toyed with telling Christine his plan, then decided against it. She was too sentimental, too weak where the son-of-a-bitch was concerned. But she'd know soon enough, and when it was over, there'd be a barbed wire fence-or "bobwire" as they say hereabouts-between Scott and his loser father.