by Paul Levine
"Bullshit!"
"It's true, Ty. I'm asset rich but cash poor."
"Martin, don't treat me like I just rode into town on a load of watermelons."
"I swear. Even if I wanted to help you out, I-"
"No helping out! No charity! You owe me. I want five million two weeks from Monday, the day after the Super Bowl."
"Ty, be reasonable. There's no cash."
"Don't be a-peeing on my leg, Martin."
"Look, we can work something out. A job, a company car, maybe some stock options in the team."
"I had a job! And as for your stock options, the only pieces of paper I want from you better have Ben Franklin's picture on 'em."
"Ty, I don't have-"
"Get it!"
His voice reverberated throughout the office, bouncing off the wood-paneled walls. It was the old voice, a bass drum, as if he'd willed himself back in time before surgery, prison, and eternal grief. The sound sent shudders of fear through Martin Kingsley, the dread compressing his chest like a vise.
"And if I don't, Ty. Then what?"
"What do you think?"
Kingsley twitched like a fish on the line. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. "You'll go public, tell where all the skeletons are buried. You'll disgrace me."
"You think I'll call a press conference like your son-in-law? Yeah, I read all about that. Not my style, Martin." He drew an embroidered white handkerchief from his suit pocket and dabbed at his wet lips, then got to his feet. "Martin, there's nothing more dangerous than a man who doesn't have anything, who doesn't care anymore. I've been stripped bare. I've got nothing to lose."
"What then, Ty? If you're going to threaten a man, lay it on the table. If I don't pay you, if I can't pay you…"
Tyler leaned over Kingsley's desk, bracing himself with his scarred hands on the fine, polished wood. "I'll do to you what was done to me. I'll burn you, Martin. I'll burn you 'til your flesh smells like pork barbecue on a Sunday night. I'll scald you 'til blisters turn you into a leper. I'll melt the skin right off your face and burn your hands into stumps, and when I'm through with you, even your own daughter won't recognize you, and your grandson will run away in fear. So don't fuck with me, pardner!"
Houston Tyler turned smartly in his cowboy boots and left the office before Kingsley could say another word.
Martin Kingsley sat motionless for a full minute, forcing himself to remain calm, to think rationally, though the fear left him with the taste of rusty steel in his mouth. He was not a man given to panic. His sense of control compelled him to push back the dread. But fear is not irrational, he thought. There are times when nothing is more damn sensible than to fear the coyote that would chew at your heart.
When he finally stood up, he finished packing his case for the trip to Green Bay, all the while ticking off the conclusions he had reached. First, Tyler was deranged, and it was futile to attempt to reason with the man. Second, Tyler would not hesitate to torture or kill him. Third, he had to find a way to pay Tyler, and if that task seemed impossible, Kingsley reminded himself of his first two conclusions.
"Losing is worse than death."
— George Allen, former NFL head coach
15
Love Without Limits
Saturday, January 28-Miami
Never let them see you sweat.
Bobby and Scott sat inside the old rustbucket limo as it was dragged through the car wash. Bobby stared at the water streaming over the windshield, trying to clear his mind and steady his nerves.
He would have to remain calm. He would use logic and reasoning to convince Vinnie LaBarca to let him off the hook, to cancel the bet on tomorrow's game. In his mind, Bobby rehearsed his plea.
"I can't pay off the bet if you win, Vinnie, so what's the use of holding me to it?"
As the car jerked along, suds pouring over the car, Bobby vowed not to show his fear. Not to LaBarca and not to Scott, either. If he did, the boy would try to help him. A father's job is to care for his child, not the other way around.
Before becoming a father, he never knew he had the capacity for such love. But now, just thinking about Scott sometimes brought tears to his eyes. It was a love without limits. He once tried to quantify it, but the closest he could come was to realize that he would pass the ultimate test of love: he would take a bullet for his son. Without blinking, without thinking. Simple as that.
Scott had his mother's serene sense of logic. If the boy knew the extent of his father's problems, he'd plug all the facts into that computerized brain of his and come up with three alternative plans with predicted probabilities of success.
So different from me.
Bobby was self-aware. He knew he was impetuous and emotional. Sometimes, he envied Christine's imperturbability in the face of crisis. Other times, he found it irritating. Either way, he figured Scott was better off inheriting his mother's cool tranquility rather than his own mercurial nature.
Bobby had set up the meeting with Dino Fornecchio, LaBarca's bodyguard and the guy who reminded him to zip up when coming out of the men's room. Now, Bobby pictured LaBarca waiting in his penthouse condo, a squat man seemingly as wide as he was tall. His nose had been badly broken and ran east and west where it should have run north and south. Bobby knew that a decent plastic surgeon could easily fix the nose but figured it was a calling card. Tough guy. Mobster. Fuck with me at your peril.
Vinnie LaBarca wheezed and sneezed, his eyes tearing. "I'm living in a goddamn jungle," he yelled at Dino Fornecchio. "Get rid of these plants and fire that damn decorator."
"Okay boss," Dino said, through the screen door to the patio. Fornecchio was dark and sullen with a long neck and knobby wrists that peeked out of the sleeves of his black silk shirt. LaBarca considered him an idiot, but he was a second cousin once removed, or maybe a first cousin twice removed. If there hadn't been some blood relationship, LaBarca would have had him totally removed.
Once when Fornecchio was supposed to lay fifty grand of Vinnie's money on Penn State, he put the money down on Penn instead. "Don't you know the difference between the Big Ten and the Ivy League!" LaBarca fumed, after the Quakers failed to cover and he lost his bet.
"Oh, like you're a college man," Fornecchio replied. "Closest you ever got to Penn State was the state pen."
LaBarca would have killed him right there if not for his mother's cousin or aunt or whoever the hell the old bag was who gave birth to this retard.
LaBarca lived in the penthouse of a high-rise on the tip of Miami Beach, just a stone crab's throw from Joe's, the oldest and most famous restaurant in town. On the east was the Atlantic and on the south Government Cut where, barely a mile away, cruise ships were berthed in single file, preparing for their weekly pre-packaged excursions to various Caribbean ports.
With his bulk sinking into a groaning chaise lounge, LaBarca relaxed on his wraparound, tiled balcony that was overgrown with vines and plants and blooming impatiens in golden urns, all ordered by a prissy decorator who barely had avoided a swan dive to the pool deck thirty floors below after presenting LaBarca with his bill.
Now LaBarca's allergies were acting up. His sinuses were clogged. His head ached, and he kept hacking up phlegm and spitting it over his balcony railing into the easterly breeze, hoping it would splat on one of the sun tanned, Eurotrash club rats on the pool deck three hundred feet below.
LaBarca rocked himself out of the chaise lounge, his gut falling over his swim trunks like a bowling ball plopping into the gutter. He moved toward the balcony railing, then squinted through a fat-barreled telescope, aiming down Government Cut toward the S.S. Norway, wondering if he could hit the damn thing with a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. He was letting the sun simmer his imagination, and in his mind's eye, he saw the vapor trail, heard the whoosh, and watched the orange flash, followed by streams of black smoke curling in the easterly breeze. LaBarca was wondering if he'd be able to hear the screams of the passengers on deck-probably not, the wind was against
him-when dumb shit Dino slid open the screen door and told him the bookie was here.
16
The Foreign Team
Bobby and Scott stood uncomfortably in a hallway of mirrors. After an hour of saying "no," Bobby had grown tired of arguing and agreed to bring his son along. Now, staring into the mirrors, Bobby saw a dozen brooding images of himself ricocheting from the walls and ceiling.
"Neat place, Dad," Scott said, walking down the hallway, watching his own reflection, his sneakers squeaking on the Italian marble floor.
Dino Fornecchio led them through the apartment, toe-walking, bouncing along as if the floor were hot under his feet, each step a swagger, his dark hair greased into duck tails in the back.
LaBarca leaned against the balcony railing in the afternoon sun, his black pelt of chest hair glistening with oil. A pitcher of iced orange juice, or maybe mimosas, sat on a glass table. The sun was bright and warm, but Bobby was chilled, his hands clammy. He'd heard stories about LaBarca, everything from having pistol-whipped liquor store clerks in his youth to, more recently, extorting protection money from cargo shippers at the Port of Miami.
Before they could exchange greetings, a cellular phone rang, and LaBarca picked it up from the table. "Tony! Mio Figlio!
The great equalizer. Vinnie LaBarca might have been a ruthless gangster but he had something in common with Bobby. They both had sons. A break, Bobby thought.
LaBarca listened to his son for a moment, then held the phone away from his ear. "Hey Gallagher," didn't you play some college ball?"
"Penn State. Walk-on Q.B." Bobby made a motion as if throwing a pass, even though he'd never played one down at quarterback since high school. As an unrecruited walk-on, he earned his letter as a holder for kicks.
"My boy Tony's a freshman at Gainesville," LaBarca said. "No scholarship, either. He's getting the crap kicked out of him on the whadayacallit.
"The foreign team," Bobby said.
"Right. He ran up against the first string. Now, they're in winter conditioning drills, and he wants to quit the team. Give him a pep talk, yeah?"
Bobby spent three minutes on the phone with the homesick kid, a nose guard, which figured, given his father's fireplug build. Young Tony probably still had cleat marks on his chest from being run over by the Gators' first-team offensive line in practice every day. Bobby spouted a few cliches about how the tough get going when the going gets tough, and told Tony he'd look back on his freshman year with the same nostalgia as a soldier recalling boot camp. So just hang in there, and go Gators, rah, rah, rah.
LaBarca took back the phone, said a few words in Italian, then hung up and gave Bobby a friendly smack on the shoulder that momentarily displaced his scapula.
"Vinnie, this is my son, Scott."
"Hey kid, how they hanging?"
"Depends whether Dallas covers," Scott said, without missing a beat.
"Hey, me too." The gangster's smile was two rows of tombstones. "Gallagher, you got a good kid there."
"Thanks. I'm sure your boy will be okay upstate."
"Hey, don't say 'upstate.' Upstate is Raiford or maybe Eglin if the feds get you."
"Sorry, I mean at Florida."
"Yeah, he'll be fine if he don't flunk out, crack up his Corvette, or knock up any more cheerleaders. I'm just hoping to get some inside dope on injuries and game plans from him."
"Smart," Bobby said, figuring it was better than saying, "Whoa, that's illegal."
"Ah-choo!" LaBarca sneezed, leaving a trail of phlegm down his chest.
"Bless you," Bobby said.
"Fucking A," LaBarca said in thanks.
LaBarca wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and shifted his bulk to train the telescope down toward the pool deck. "So what's up, Gallagher?" he asked, peering into the lens.
"I couldn't lay off your six hundred large. The line moved, and I'm holding all of it."
"So?" LaBarca looked toward the pitcher, and from nowhere, Dino appeared and filled a large glass. Ice cubes clinked, but no one offered the guests a drink.
Bobby shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. "Well, you knew I wasn't good for it. I mean we didn't discuss it, but it was sort of implicit that if I couldn't lay it off-"
"Im-pli-cit?" LaBarca rolled the syllables around on his tongue and didn't seem to like the taste. He swung the telescope away and looked directly at Bobby, his squashed nose looking even more pugnacious. "I'll tell you what's implicit. A bookie's gotta pay off when he takes a bet or he ain't gonna be taking no more bets if you get my drift."
The drift Bobby was getting was the northerly flow of the Gulf Stream where wannabe wise guys did the dead man's float. His mind raced.
"Vinnie, hear me out. I made a mistake. I shouldn't have taken the bet. I'm just doing this 'til I get my license back. I've petitioned for reinstatement to the Bar, and this was something I had to do for the money, but I'm no damn good at it. The limo business has been lousy, so I tried to go for one big score on the vig. I just want you to let me off the hook before something bad happens."
His face reddening, LaBarca leaned toward Bobby as if to get a better look. "Something bad? Like Dallas winning by more than seven."
"Yeah. Exactly"
"But something bad for you is good for me. It's not like I can go out and duplicate the bet, right. Today, I gotta give nine points, so if the Mustangs win by eight, I lose. Why the hell should I let you off the hook when I made a good bet?"
"Because I can't pay if I lose."
"I hear you got a real rich father-in-law," LaBarca said.
"Ex-father-in-law."
"So? Would he want anything bad to happen to the father of his grandson?"
"It's his fondest wish."
"C'mon, Gallagher. Families have problems, but would he want you to take a dirt nap?"
"He'd turn the first spadeful," Bobby said.
Scott couldn't believe it. Dad was fouling everything up. This wasn't the way to get to Vinnie LaBarca.
"I still haven't heard one good reason why I should cancel the bet," LaBarca said.
"Because you'll get bricked if Dallas doesn't cover the seven," Scott piped up. "The underdog is the smarter bet."
LaBarca's laugh spilled out of his stocky frame like water overflowing a tub. "The kid's a handicapper. Say, kid, do you use a system? C'mon, give me a tip."
"I like the dog when I can get more than five points," Scott said. "The American Economist did a study that proves you can go over the break-even point of 52.38 per cent just by following that system."
"No shit?"
"It's solid. Since you bet eleven dollars to win ten," Scott said in a grown-up tone, "you've got to win eleven bets to every ten you lose-52.38 per cent-just to break even."
"Right, because thieves like your old man take ten per cent juice."
"Bullcrap!" Scott said. "Dad's entitled to his vig.
"Cool it, Scott," Bobby said.
"What about this underdog stuff, Einstein?" LaBarca asked. "You telling me you like Green Bay tomorrow?"
"A lot, a scabillion!" Scott said.
"Scott, let me handle this." Bobby gave his son a sharp look.
"I would, Dad, but this is too important to me."
"To you? It's my bet."
"It's my life! I don't want to get punted to some nerdy boarding school where I gotta wear a coat and tie. So, please, just let me-"
"Scott! I'm your father."
"And I'm not," LaBarca broke in. "I'm not related to either one of you, thank Christ. Gallagher, you can't even control your own kid. Ever try slapping him around?"
"No."
"Didn't think so." He fixed Bobby with a dark-eyed glare. "A bet's a bet. You gotta know that, Gallagher."
He turned back to his telescope and peered down toward the pool deck. "Hey kid, you wanna see some topless babes? Even from this distance I can pick out the real from the silicone."
"Maybe you've never heard of the letdown trend," Scott said, not willing to give in
.
"You should bet against the league's highest scoring team of the prior week. The probability is that they won't cover the spread, either as favorite or underdog."
"I'm not sure Mr. LaBarca wants to hear this," Scott," Bobby said.
"Sure I do. Go ahead, kid."
Scott smiled. "If the team has two high-scoring weeks in a row, bet against them the third week, and always bet against any team that manages to score more than one hundred points over a three-game spread, especially if that team has held its opponents to nine points or less in the last two games. Dallas scored the most points and gave up the least in the playoffs. They're due to break some shop."
"To break what?"
"You know, to do something janky and shiesty, to let down."
Vinnie LaBarca regarded the boy suspiciously. "In the conference championship game?"
"The stats apply to the playoffs, too. I have the numbers on my computer at home if you want to see them."
"Are you sure?" LaBarca sounded dubious, but a note of uncertainty crept into his voice.
"Even if you don't believe the letdown theory, Green Bay is a home underdog in a big game. Betting the home dog is one of the best strategies."
"I know. I know. I've been making money on home dogs before you were born." He seemed to think it over, then stood up, wrapping a terrycloth towel around his midsection. After a moment, he said, "Nine points."
"How's that?" Bobby asked.
"The line has moved to nine. Betting Green Bay today, I'd get the home dog plus nine."
Scott knew immediately where LaBarca was headed, and he did some quick permutations. If LaBarca wanted to hedge his bet, it could be very good for Dad. But it could be very bad, too. As the men continued talking, Scott quietly figured the odds of each possibility.
At first Bobby didn't understand, but then he brightened. "You want to hedge the six hundred thousand? Good thinking. Very smart. Definitely. The smart money does that a lot when the line moves-"