by Paul Levine
24
The Owner, the Lawyer, and the Gangster
Tuesday, January 31-Miami Beach
Five Days until the Super Bowl
Not bad for a country boy. No, not bad at all, Martin Kingsley thought.
An fifteen-hundred dollar a night bungalow by the pool, a shimmering blue thread of water one hundred fifty feet long that seemed to stretch right to the beach. Not that anyone was swimming. There were a few pretty boys lounging in the shallow water, some leggy, short-haired European model types in bikinis dipping their toes along the edge. A chess set with Alice in Wonderland pieces four feet high sat on the lawn amidst towering palms, mirrors leaning against tree trunks, and a kitchen table with mismatched chairs.
Bizarre, and what a hoot for the son of a West Texas wildcatter. He was waiting for three visitors but only two had shown up. His plans had been meticulous and, he chuckled to himself, damn clever. He would destroy Robert Gallagher, would crush him into dust, watch him blow away with the Texas tumbleweeds, or more appropriately here, the Atlantic sea breeze.
Kingsley wouldn't do it for revenge, of course. He was above that, he told himself. He would do it for Scott. God, how he loved that boy. What potential the child had. But if he stayed with that loser of a father, who knows what would become of him? Kingsley shuddered, picturing a grown-up Scott sitting in a cage at a racetrack, dispensing two-dollar tickets, living in a rented room, never fulfilling his potential. A small timer like his old man.
The boy's a genius for Christ's sake, and it's my job to take care of him, to mold his life in a way his father can't. And his mother won't.
Sad to say, but Christine is too soft. Too much sentiment, just like her mother, bless her memory. No matter, I'll handle it. I'll handle everything.
Kingsley sat on a white-cushioned chair inside his all-white bungalow-white orchid in a white pot, white TV, white fridge, white linens on the white platform bed-watching the surreal scene outside his window.
Toto, we're not in Lubbock anymore.
He wondered what his father, the sun-baked, squinty-eyed Earl Kingsley, would have thought of the Delano Hotel. The man who never could scrape the grime from the seams of his hands would have figured he'd been transported not to Miami Beach, but to another galaxy.
Not that his father couldn't appreciate extravagance. He loved the finer things if they were the largest and most expensive things. Subtlety was not old Earl's strong suit. When he had money, which is to say when the oil flowed and the dice were charmed, he built the biggest house in Dallas, a monstrous combination Greek Parthenon and Southern plantation with pillars the size of giant redwoods. He'd imported artists from Italy to paint the Kingsley version of the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling of the giant rotunda. There, among euphoric visions of angels and puffy clouds was an oil derrick and a set of football goalposts. Though Earl Kingsley had never set foot inside a college classroom, he was a rabid follower of the University of Texas Longhorns and regularly slipped hundred-dollar bills to the fleetest and strongest of their so-called student-athletes.
As if the mansion were not sufficiently blasphemous in itself, Earl went on to offend the city's Baptists by proclaiming that "God hisself would have built this house if he had the money." Earl had the money but not the pedigree. He'd claimed to have been born so far west in Texas that the sun knocked a brick out of the fireplace every time it set. His hands were too callused, his humor too gruff for the folks at the Ashbrook Country Club. Earl Kingsley was not to be a part of the charity balls and coming-out parties. It only made him work harder, earn more, and spend more.
Martin Kingsley knew from early childhood that his father adored him. He remembered one Christmas when his father had the Union Pacific build a miniature railroad in the huge backyard of the mansion. There was a working steam engine, two cars and a caboose that huffed and puffed through a tunnel, across a bridge, and around a man-made mountain. It could hold young Martin and half a dozen friends. Only there weren't any friends. Martin rode the train himself, and when the neighbors complained about the noise of the steam whistle, he tooted louder and longer, especially when close to the property line. Closing his eyes now, he could still hear the whistle. Hell, now he wanted to toot it louder than ever. He wanted to get even with everyone who ever insulted his old man.
Hey, look at me. I'm Earl Kingsley's son. Look at what I've built, you bastards!
Martin also knew very young that his father was a man of excesses. Earl Kingsley drank too much, gambled too much, spent too much. When his luck ran out, one disaster after another drained him. The wells went dry; his commodities trading went belly up; and the dice kept staring back with snake eyes.
The country clubbers-safe with their inherited T-Bills and trust funds-sneered that Earl was "all hat, no cattle." One night, a drunk and depressed Earl Kingsley stuck a twelve-gauge shotgun in his mouth and left it all behind.
Martin wished his father could see what he had become. Rich, sure, but accepted too. Martin had made his first grubstake in land development and parlayed that into oil and gas, and then a go-go savings and loan which folded, but not before he'd pocketed millions. He'd invested in fledgling pharmaceuticals and computer software companies, and everything paid off. But he was always highly leveraged, asset rich and cash poor. He could never have bought the team without picking up Houston Tyler's stock dirt cheap, then pledging everything to the banks in return for the loan.
Unlike his father, Martin had the schooling and polish and a key to the members' locker room at Ashbrook. Like his father, he gambled, too, but for different reasons. With connections to wise guys in Las Vegas, he was tipped to point-shaving in college basketball, horse dopings, and fighters who planned to visit the canvas in the first round. The sheer act of winning, not the rush of adrenalin that comes with risk, juiced Martin Kingsley. He feared losing everything as his father had done and liked nothing so much as a sure thing. He dreaded only that which he could not control. The flip of a coin, a field goal attempt into a cross-wind…the explosion of a pump at the Texas City refinery.
Seven men dead and one ghost back from the grave.
Houston Tyler had been right.
He went to jail for my crimes.
For all his years tromping through the mud and muck of the oil fields, Tyler was still naive, an innocent. In a way, he was like Robert Gallagher, Kingsley thought, seeing only black and white, hopelessly blind to shades of gray. The prosecutor had offered Tyler a plea to reckless endangerment-a hundred thousand dollar fine and ninety days in jail-but he wouldn't take it, despite Kingsley's urging.
"I'm innocent, Martin, and you damn well know it," Tyler had said.
But the jury didn't know it, and at trial, Tyler had refused to point the finger at his partner.
What do you do with such a man? Kingsley wondered.
For one thing, you take him at his word.
"I'll do to you what was done to me. I'll burn you, Martin."
That son-of-a-bitch, emerging from his past like a serpent from the mist, threatening everything he had built. There is nothing so dangerous as a self-righteous man who has been wronged, Kingsley thought. What was he going to do about the lousy five million dollars Tyler demanded be paid the day after the Super Bowl? Kingsley didn't have the cash and his line of credit was overdrawn. He could sell assets, of course, but what did he have that wasn't pledged to the banks?
Yesterday, just before Kingsley had boarded the Gulfstream — liened from nose to tail — Tyler had called him at Valley Ranch. "You got room for me in that hotel suite in sunny Mia-muh?" his ex-partner asked.
"What?" Caught off guard, his heart pounding like a drowning swimmer's, Kingsley didn't know what to say.
"I suppose not, Martin. You're probably gonna have lots of fancy parties with caviar and drinks on silver trays. You always threw a good party, the costs be damned."
"What is it you want, Ty?"
"I'll be there, Martin, looking over your shoulder. Like those banks di
d to us when we were up to our ass in debt, I'll be keeping a close eye on the collateral. My good eye!"
He cackled with laughter, and the line clicked dead. The bastard wanted to frighten him, and he did a good job, Kingsley admitted to himself. The scratchy voice coming from that scarred throat rattled him, made him feel as if crows were pecking away at his spinal column.
Kingsley had been edgy on the flight to Miami, and once here, he struggled to relax. It would not be easy. He had to come up with the money, and as of yet, he didn't have a plan. But there was something else to be accomplished in the next dozen days, too. He had to destroy Robert Gallagher, and that plan was in full gear.
The woman lawyer had been the first visitor to Kingsley's pool side bungalow that fine morning. The ocean breeze fluttered through the diaphanous white curtains as they'd shared a pitcher of grapefruit juice, eggs Benedict for Kingsley, a fruit cup for her. Cuban, he figured, dark and sultry like the Mexican women he had known since his wife's death, but taller and leaner with impenetrable eyes.
When Angelica Suarez had filed her appearance with the court in the custody/visitation case, Kingsley's investigators started digging. Now, Kingsley was confident he knew more about the woman than Gallagher did. He knew what videos she rented and what magazines she read. He knew what she ate for dinner and how many bottles of wine-Chardonnay and Chianti-were tossed into the recycling basket each Tuesday. He knew where she shopped, how much she spent, and-thanks to her charge account at a Little Havana farmacia — what day of the month her period began.
Even more important, Kingsley knew she had bought her own building in Little Havana and was behind on the mortgage payments. She had a 10-year-old niece with dyslexia, whose mother — Suarez's sister — was in drug rehab. The lawyer's credit cards were maxed out, and she was stressed out from too little sleep and too many clients who didn't pay their bills. Including one Robert Gallagher who traded limo service for legal work. And maybe slipped her some sausage on the side, judging from a Saturday surveillance that turned into an all-nighter.
Now Angelica Suarez sat on the chair across from him and smoothed the fabric on her black dress, which contrasted starkly with the white surroundings. A string of white pearls at her neck had an antique look, maybe smuggled out of Havana by her abuela. She had prominent cheekbones and an aristocratic bearing and could probably trace her heritage to Spain, Kingsley thought.
"I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think it was in Bobby's best interest," she said as Kingsley poured her coffee from a white pot. "He needs to get on with his life."
"Fine with me. I don't care why you're doing it."
"We would lose the case anyway. If we could win it, I never…" She let her voice trail off like a dying breeze.
He smiled to himself.
We all rationalize, don't we? Do it every day. Hell, I can rationalize not replacing the pumps at the Texas City refinery.
"Are you sure he's coming?" Kingsley asked.
"He'll be here at eleven, but I can't guarantee he'll take your offer."
"You don't have to. Your job was to deliver him and recommend settlement. I'll do the sales job."
He slid a plump envelope across the table, and she placed it inside a Gucci briefcase without bothering to open it and count the bills.
"I hate what you've done to him," she said, getting to her feet, her eyes welling with tears.
You can put 'em in foxholes and courtrooms, but sure as shooting, they'll cry at the slightest provocation.
"He's a good man," she continued, "and I just hope you let him get a new start."
"That's up to him, lady."
Kingsley sat down for a television interview while he waited for the second visitor. The team owner was getting more ink than Chet Krause, the Dallas coach, which was fine with both of them. Krause was an x's and o's guy who distrusted the press and could never figure why they needed comments every damn week when it all boiled down to the same thing: if we block and tackle better than they do, we'll win. Kingsley, on the other hand, never met a microphone he didn't want to fondle.
Although he had a personnel director, a head coach and ten assistant coaches, Kingsley never failed to take credit for the strategy that won games and the trades that brought enough talent to the team to make it to the Super Bowl. The pre-game hype and hysteria were just beginning. Once the team arrived, the media feeding frenzy would really begin. In the meantime, he would manipulate the press as he always had, kneading the reporters egos as a baker works his dough.
Outside the bungalow, a photo shoot was setting up around the pool. Kingsley watched from his patio as a photographer and several assistants fussed around three apparently anorexic young women in a low-cut cocktail dresses who were standing in the extraordinarily shallow end of the pool, the water barely covering their toes. An earnest young man in baggy shorts and t-shirt spritzed water on their golden bosoms. Again, Kingsley wished his father could be here to behold the wonders of such a strange place.
A moment later, his second visitor arrived, a stocky man with a bent nose and an unfriendly sneer. Kingsley welcomed the gangster and led him into the living room of the bungalow. He smiled to himself, imagining Bobby's fear in dealing with Vinnie LaBarca. What an able cast he had chosen for this little charade, Kingsley thought, and so far, all the actors had played their roles to perfection. Wouldn't his ex son-in-law shit a brick if he knew how he'd been played?
That's right, Robert. You're a puppet and I pull your strings.
"You want to take a walk, get away from all these fruitcakes?" Vinnie LaBarca asked, gesturing past the open patio door toward the pool.
"I'm not sure it's a good idea for us to be seen together," Kingsley said, pulling the white curtains closed. "The Commissioner frowns on owners associating with known gamblers."
LaBarca laughed. "Right. He's gotta say that, but if it wasn't for betting, who'd give a shit about a game between a couple cellar dwellers in December?"
Outside, hotel guests in chaise lounges pretended not to stare at the models in the pool.
"So how's our boy?" Kingsley asked, watching the scene through the window.
"He's in a hole so deep he can't see the sky," LaBarca said. "A million four with interest."
"And he thinks you'll break his legs if he doesn't pay?"
"Break his legs, hell. I'd make him disappear. I got a reputation to protect."
"I like your attitude, Mr. LaBarca. You're a winner."
Everything would be so much simpler with Bobby Gallagher out of the picture, Kingsley thought. He could raise Scott himself, mold him into a man. Hell, he had always wanted a son. He let the thought roll around for a moment, then stored it away, the knowledge that Bobby Gallagher's life hung by the slimmest of threads and he held the shears.
That was a treat to be savored later. For the moment, he wanted to enjoy the glorious scam that put Gallagher in debt to him. It was a combination of skill and the old Kingsley luck. He'd been feeding LaBarca inside info of injuries and game plans for years, and a week ago, he called in the debt, telling the gangster to make the first bet with Gallagher. It was a no-lose proposition. If LaBarca lost the bet, he would have challenged Gallagher to try and collect it. Win, he'd force Gallagher to pay. Once the spread moved on the game, Kingsley told LaBarca to double down, and with luck, he middled his hapless ex-son-in-law.
Like making the eight the hard way.
So far, everything had gone according to plan. Hell, better than that.
"Thanks Mr. Kingsley, and remember, you can call me any time you need an electrician."
"How's that?"
"When you want to put somebody's lights out." The mobster's sharp laugh sounded liked the howl of a coyote.
"I'll keep it in mind," Kingsley said.
An exasperated cry went up from the pool, "Too harsh!" The photographer, a skinny man with a ponytail stomped his feet and gesticulated wildly with his light meter. "Damn this tropical sun!"
"It's been a pleasu
re doing business with you, Mr. LaBarca," Kingsley said formally, sliding the second envelope of the morning across the table. This one was larger, legal-sized, and stuffed with even more cash.
"Hey, the pleasure's all mine. I never got paid to place a bet before. I just wish it had been my money up." He took the envelope, opened it and riffled through the first stack of hundred-dollar bills. He paused a moment and seemed to consider some quiet thought before speaking. "Mr. Kingsley, I'm a man who likes to return a favor. I got a real good hunch on the Super Bowl if you want to hear it."
Kingsley shook his head. "I've got to be careful. Laying down a bet myself is too risky."
Besides, the Commissioner's been on my ass about cutting corners on the salary cap, fudging injury reports and tampering with players and coaches under contract elsewhere, so I've got to watch my backside.
"Too bad," LaBarca said, "because I've got the skinny on the game."
"Even if I wanted to take a ride, I don't like the spread. My Mustangs are a four-point favorite. Hell, if we beat the Pats by a field goal, I'd still lose the bet."
"What if it wasn't a gamble?" LaBarca asked, a conspiratorial smile creasing his face.
What's he saying? This isn't some college kid shaving points in a Wednesday night basketball game. This is the Super Bowl with everybody in the world watching.
"What are you telling me? That you know my Mustangs will cover?"
"Dead solid certain. It's a lock."
"Chet Krause tells me he thinks the Pats have better personnel and are better coached, and he ain't just being humble. He also says they're hungrier."
"They could be starving. Wouldn't make any difference."
"But how can you be sure?" Kingsley pressed him.
"Trust me, you're better off not knowing."
Martin Kingsley would not trust Vinnie LaBarca any farther than he could throw Buckwalter Washington, and the defensive lineman had an ass the size of Arkansas. Still, the possibilities were intriguing. God, how he wanted to win the Super Bowl, and how he'd love to win a huge bet.