Paydirt

26

An hour after hanging up with Christine, Bobby stood in front of the Delano where the valet parkers looked at his scarred and dented limo as if it were a four thousand pound cockroach. Parking at the hotel was sixteen bucks, and it usually took twenty minutes for these young Adonises in white shorts and shirts with epaulets-cruise ship cabin boys-to get your pride and joy back to you. Bobby was a heavy tipper of bone-weary waitresses who got the order straight and bartenders who drew his beer with no head, but he made a mental note not to reward these callow youths.

He almost didn't show up at all. Bobby hated groveling in front of his ex-father-in-law and would never have done it except Angelica Suarez insisted she'd quit if he refused to take the meeting. Now he wondered…

Just how do you borrow a fortune from someone who hates you?

Once inside, he saw Martin Kingsley in the high-ceilinged lobby where tourists and celebrity wannabees made an effort not to gape at the mismatched, funky furniture. A man in plaid Bermuda shorts half reclined, half sat on a metal bed draped in faux fur, then gave up and rolled off. Nearby, a tiny woman nearly disappeared into an oversize sofa with a towering winged back. The place was way beyond funk. It was in a league of its own, post-modern trendy, hey-look-at-me-Alice-in-Wonderland-on-crystal meth design.

Kingsley stood in the dead center of the lobby surrounded by a gaggle of reporters who scribbled notes or fooled with mikes. His ex-father-in-law was the image of a successful businessman in his jet-black Armani suit, white-on-white shirt and gold cuff-links. Only the flowing mane of white hair and the lizard cowboy boots gave any hint of Texas.

"I'm not Joe Namath, so I won't guarantee a win," Kingsley said with his politician's smile. "But I'll tell you this. It'll be a hard-fought game on both sides, and nobody will turn off their sets early. We're gonna sell a lot of beer, and you can quote me on that."

C'mon, the reporters prodded, hoping for a prediction, some enticing headline.

"Well, I'll tell y'all this," Kingsley relented, slathering on the accent as thick barbecue sauce. "Them Pats better be ready 'cause we're planning to open a can of whup ass."

The reporters scratched at their pads, the cameras rolled, and Kingsley parried a few more questions, praising his all-world receiver Nightlife Jackson, reminding the scribes that only the genius of the G.M.-Kingsley himself-allowed the Mustangs to steal him from the Forty-Niners for a tight end with bad knees and two low-round draft choices.

"The Mustangs are America's dream, America's team," Kingsley sang out. He was on a roll, loving the sound of his own voice.

Bobby marveled at the man, the heavyweight champion of hype. God, how he loved to be the center of attention.

After all questions were patiently answered, Kingsley patted a few backs as the reporters drifted away, then glanced toward Bobby, adjusting his smile as if it were a party mask. "Robert, my boy, so pleased you could come."

"Hello Martin. Thanks for seeing me."

"Anytime." Kingsley wrapped his arm around Bobby and guided him through the patio restaurant and past the pool to his bungalow.

"Have you ever seen such a bunch of weirdos in your life?" Kingsley whispered, gesturing toward the pool deck. "Jesus, in the bar last night, you couldn't tell the men from the women. I'll just be glad when we can play some football."

"Four days," Bobby said, aware of the ticking clock. Each day he owed Vinnie LaBarca another twenty-four thousand dollars in interest.

"Right. Four days until the Big Dance. By God, I love it! I thought I loved seeing an oil well shoot its wad like a giant cock, but this…this, I gotta tell you, sets the heart a-thumping."

Bobby was surprised that the old man seemed so friendly. When they were inside the bungalow, Kingsley motioned Bobby into a white cushioned chair, then drew up a chair next to him. A basket of mangoes, papaya, and star fruit sat on the table between them.

"Now Robert, what can I do for you?"

Kingsley made all the appropriate sounds, cluck-clucking, at Bobby's bad fortune, frowning with concern at every misadventure. He strained not to overdo it. His ex-son-in-law was not stupid, after all.

"How much do you owe this LoBorco?" he asked, purposely mangling the name.

"A million four."

Kingsley exhaled a long whistle. "That's a helluva herd of cattle."

"Yeah."

"I think I can help you out of this jam," Kingsley said.

"You can?" Bobby said, a bit too eagerly.

Kingsley studied him, the wolf measuring the soft belly of the lamb. Robert Gallagher, the man he had once groomed to fill his ostrich-skin boots, was offering himself up to the slaughter.

"Robert, would you agree it's time for us to settle our differences, begin behaving like a family again?"

"Yes. Yes, of course. I never wanted us to be enemies. I just couldn't go on violating my principles and-"

Kingsley silenced him with a wave of the hand. His ex-son-in-law was adrift in heavy seas and would grab the first line thrown to him. "No use replaying that old game film. Let's look to the future. Would you agree that I love my grandson very much?"

"I've never doubted it, Martin. And Scott is nuts about you."

Kingsley smiled. The drowning man beckoned, begging for the rope. "And you'd agree I always have had his best interests at heart?'

"In your own mind, I'm sure you do."

Unfurling the line now, swinging it overhead.

"And believe it or not, Robert, I have no animus for you, either. I want to help you."

"Yeah?"

He wants to believe. Let the lifeline fly, dangle it just within his reach.

"I'll take care of your debt to Mr. LoBorco."

"You'll loan me the money?"

Sounding hopeful and wary at the same time. Time to allay his fears.

"Hell, no! It's a gift. Consider the debt paid in full."

Not a very generous one, though, because I don't have to pay him a dime.

"And I'll help you get your law license back."

"You'll pay the money and support my petition for reinstatement?"

Wanting to believe it, praying that it's true.

"I've got quite a bit of pull where that's concerned. Consider it a done deal. It's time you got back to doing what you're good at, because Lord knows, you're a lousy bookie."

"Martin, I don't know what to say. I…"

"There's just one thing," Kingsley said, drawing a file out of a brown leather briefcase. The papers were neatly typed and stapled to a blue-backing emblazoned with the name of a Dallas law firm. "We really ought to resolve all the issues between you and Christine. Now, you and I both know that Scott will never reach his full potential going to a second rate school in Miami."

Bobby's head snapped back as if he'd taken a sharp jab to the chin. "Meaning what? I won't have him shipped off to some boarding school."

"Not some boarding school. Berkshire Prep, the best. Scott's All-Pro material when it comes to brains. He's a math genius, Robert. Now, Christine is busy as hell in her work, and you'll be busy putting a practice back together. What I'm proposing is that you concentrate on your lawyering, Christine on the team, and I'll look out for Scott."

He slid the papers toward Bobby who glanced quickly through them, then turned to Kingsley with eyes as cold as a glacial lake.

"Give up my parental rights! Limit my visitation to holidays like some out-of-town uncle? Are you out of your mind? I won't agree to any of it. Not for a million-eight or eighteen million. I'll take my chances with Vinnie LaBarca before I'd sell you my son at any price."

Forgetting just how close to drowning he is.

Kingsley managed a smug smile, as if he expected the reaction and was not ruffled by it. Inside, his anger smoldered. The man was such a fool. "I'd make Scott my heir, give him every opportunity money can buy. He shouldn't be hitched to a dead mule like you, Robert. Frankly, you're not the best role model in the world."

"And you are? You don't even know there are some things money can't buy."

That claptrap again! Kingsley felt his rage building like water behind a dam. His ex-son-in-law was such a horse's ass. "Like your principles, I suppose. The principled lawyer who became a principled bookmaker."

"You're right. I was a whore, a liar, and a cheat. I was trying to be just like you."

The chump wasn't going for it! I'm offering salvation, and he's turning it down!

"Damn you, Robert Gallagher!" Kingsley was shocked the weasel still had any fight left in him and was bitter that his plan was not working. "Who are you to talk to me like that? What have you ever done? You didn't even play the game! You crouched on one knee and held the ball for the kicker. You've always been an anonymous, faceless nobody who got his picture in the papers only when he ratted on his own clients. You're washed up as a lawyer and can't make a living as a bookie, and your self-righteousness disgusts me. I'll take Scott from you one way or the other and some day thank me for it."

Kingsley felt his face turning a blustery red as if steam had just blown out of him. It was a relief to tell Gallagher what he really thought instead of pretending to care about the prick. Thinking now he'd turn LaBarca loose on Gallagher. If he's floating in the Bay, who'll raise Scott then?

"You can't intimidate me, Martin. You could once, but no more. And another thing, your team was lucky as hell to cover the spread in Green Bay, and I was unlucky as hell to get middled. I think your Mustangs are gonna get the shit kicked out of them in the Super Bowl, and I hope they do."

A smile sailed across Kingsley's face like the brim of a ten-gallon hat. "Talk's cheap, Robert. If you had any money, I'd ask you to put it where your big, stupid mouth is."

He said it without thinking, surely without a plan, but it came to him then, a way to turn mud into oil, bullshit into gold. It had nothing to do with the litigation. Hell, his lawyers would win in court eventually. Gallagher was finished, washed up, and Scott would have to look to his loving grandfather for stability and support. This had just been a way to speed up the inevitable. But now, another thought was forming, another problem to be solved.

Maybe Gallagher's stubborn rectitude had just become a blessing, Kingsley thought. Maybe he could parlay Gallagher's ruination into a way to solve his own financial problems. The germ of the idea was multiplying rapidly, and like most of his ideas, it had a dollar sign attached to it. The dollar sign stood directly in front of the five million dollars that Houston Tyler wanted paid the day after the Super Bowl. So neat and clean. He'd win the bet, pay off Tyler, then tell LaBarca to toss Bobby off the highest building in Miami.

"How would you like to take a bet on the Super Bowl, Bobby?" Kingsley asked.

At first, he didn't think Kingsley was serious. Bobby was too angry to pay much attention anyway, his heart banging away like a hammer pounding rocks. Who did the old man think he was? Trying to buy his son as if he were a mineral rights lease. Now Bobby was on his feet, preparing to leave, barely listening as the crazy bastard was yammering about a bet on the Super Bowl.

"If you're so sure my Mustangs will lose, or at least won't cover the spread, take some action on it."

"Are you nuts? I'm not gonna do business with you."

"Well, you're a bookmaker, aren't you? I'm giving you a chance to get even. I'll take Dallas minus four for five million dollars."

Bobby wasn't sure he heard correctly, so he stood dead still and asked Kingsley to repeat it. After he did, Bobby said, "Martin, if I had five million dollars, I wouldn't be here. I'd have paid off Vinnie LaBarca and would be winterizing my yacht."

"I know that, Robert. I'd expect you to lay it off, go partners with some of your bookie friends. Let's say I lose, I'd owe you what? Five point five million with the vig, right?"

"Yeah."

"And if you bring that in to a syndicate of bookies and Dallas fails to cover, what would be your share?"

"Probably twenty per cent."

"One-point-one million, including the vig," Kingsley said. "You'd have a helluva start paying off your debt."

Bobby nodded. He'd love to take the bastard's money. He'd love to see Dallas lose the game and Kingsley lose the bet. Plus, if he paid one-point-one million, more than three-quarters of the debt, he could buy time from LaBarca. There were hockey and the NBA playoffs coming up and March Madness. He could make more money, pay down what he owed. But what if Dallas covered? What if Kingsley won the game and the bet? He'd probably be dead the next day.

Bobby suddenly felt dizzy, his body rocking like a boat in a swell. He sat down and tried to think clearly. Maybe it would work. Maybe Kingsley's giant ego had just saved him. He could get healthy on Super Bowl Sunday if someone would back the bet. An amazing array of prospects spun in his head.

He'd fight to get his Bar license back.

He'd beat them in court and keep Scott at home.

He'd win back Chrissy from that born-again hambone quarterback with the plastic smile. Maybe they'd even have another child. Suddenly, there were more possibilities than grains of sand on the beach. Now who could he get to back the bet?

"The Super Bowl is to compulsive gamblers what New Year's Eve is to alcoholics."

— Arnie Wexler, former executive director, New Jersey Council on Compulsive Gambling