Paydirt

11

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-ten. 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.

"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.