Advantage Disadvantage (5 page)

“I’m in. What else we gonna do – become doctors?”
Bobby concurred sarcastically.

The gang’s indoctrination started out with the
courting in
ceremony. The biggest guys knocked around the
BG’s
(baby gangsters) for 30 seconds to establish a loyalty
that is just as irrational as a college fraternity hazing. The
cousins made it through the short beatings with some aspirin and
bags of ice. Nonetheless, they survived, and soon were on the
payroll. Gangs operated with the efficiency of a Wall Street
investment bank. The BG’s were assigned simple jobs at first such
as lookout, cleaner and other manual labor. Later after tests of
loyalty and subordination, the cousins progressed from guest to
associate member.

Each associate of this gang earned a customized
handgun. Some time ago, one of the gang’s brethren knocked over a
gun and range store. The gang stole several hundred Baretta
Semi-Automatic 9MM pistols. Each gun had a legal capacity of 15
bullets in the clip and one in the barrel. It weighed about two
pounds with deadly, short-term accuracy. Securing these guns was a
big deal to the gang because they were unregistered - without any
ballistic testing traces. The gang contracted a carpenter to
replace the dull black factory handles on the pistols with a dark
blue inlay. Each banger was proud to carry his “
Cobalt
”, a
tool for protection, identification, and intimidation. It was also
a gang-specific symbol for earning full-associate status. Bobby
cherished and regularly polished his new Cobalt.

As their loyalty was proven, new gang members became
front men or salesmen for one of the various vices in which they
engaged. The gang had a diversified portfolio of vice operations:
prostitution, drugs, protection (extortion) and gambling. After a
required rotation of jobs that showed the gang supervisors what
kind of talent was in the labor pool, the middle managers met with
the veteranos to bid on each BG for divisional assignment. The
rotation was nicknamed the “Boot Camp” and it was the path to job
promotion for newcomers.

Davis was a blocking and tackling kind of
gangbanger. He was tough enough to protect the gang hookers; he was
busted a couple times for drug possession with intent to sell. In
juvenile detention, he demonstrated his street smarts and loyalty
by not talking about the gang. He was bold enough to display the
gang’s flags (wearing clothes featuring their colors and
insignias). Each time the police held him at the Elgin facility, he
remained silent. It usually took a couple days waiting for the
gang’s
mouthpieces
to obtain his release. The gang always
kept a few attorneys on retainer to handle the constant arrests and
federal tax issues. Nearly all of the hired mouthpieces were
Jewish. The gang not so affectionately referred to them as Hebrews
or “Heebs”. Moreover, after a day or two, Davis was normally back
on his street corner selling ganja and crack to passing cars.

Bobby Jones was much brighter than most of the
club’s personnel. He had demonstrated his penchant for mathematics
several times. More subtle and cerebral than his cousin, he fit-in
better with the thinking assignments and less with the muscle jobs.
He was extremely valuable in the gang’s gambling division and he
liked his permanent assignment there. Like everyone, he started at
the bottom, from look out at the gang’s sports book, to runner, and
ultimately to odds maker.

***

The cousins advanced down their separate career
paths. By now, they were twenty-five years old and Bobby
sarcastically earned the nickname Bobby the Greek (a play on the
Las Vegas icon, Jimmy the Greek, who set the betting lines in Las
Vegas for many years). By then, Bobby the Greek (shortened to Bobby
G.) was contributing enormous sums of money to the gang’s coffers,
and in turn, he earned a larger cut of the action.

The gang always appreciated members who opened new
avenues of opportunities. For people like Davis, it meant expanding
his drug clientele to new grade schools within his hard fought
territory. Davis also tried to make connections with suburban
chippers
(occasional users) who could drive by the street
where he conducted his operation.

Bobby G. made his contribution to new business by
developing a sports book of bets on high schools. While the glamour
bets revolved around college or professional football and
basketball, high school betting was smaller but much more
profitable. In traditional sports betting, the bookie would develop
the highest level of bets and to the extent possible, he would try
to attract a balanced betting load. If too many bets were coming in
on the Chicago Bears giving five points in a particular game, the
bookie would raise the number of points to encourage bets on the
other side (against the Bears). Anyone who lost a wager paid a 10%
losing tax called “juice”. Therefore, the bookie would try to have
an equal balance of bets. Suppose Bobby G. was able to get $50,000
bet on the Bears to win, and $50,000 on the Bears to lose. This
would be a sports book nirvana because the bookie cares not who won
– the juice was $5,000 paid by the loser, which the gang earned
without taking any risks. Even the large Las Vegas sports books
operated this way. They used the point spreads to regulate the flow
of money on each side of the action, and if they were still heavily
unbalanced, the casino placed the excess money as a bet in another
sports book. The gang was a microcosm of Las Vegas. They routinely
gathered in the bets, and usually laid off the unbalanced bets.
Boring yes, but it was a very profitable (10%) with no risk.

The high school betting operation developed by Bobby
G. was founded on the same principles; trying to balance off the
bets. However, Las Vegas did not accept bets on high school games.
Bobby G. had to formulate the odds for every game. He was well
informed and did his homework every year. First, he developed
on-going relationships with many local area coaches, grade school
through twelfth grade as well as travelling basketball managers. In
addition, Bobby G. was a regular at various gyms in the summer
time, checking out the incoming freshman talent, gathering
information, finding out which teams were improving and spreading
the word to wealthy suburban parents who loved to bet on their
sons’ teams and occasionally betting pro and college games as well.
He dubbed these people “homers” because most of them overestimated
their local teams’ capabilities and bet like chumps. Homers made
Bobby’s sports betting operation more profitable because he offered
a betting line way out of whack – enough that he sometimes did not
even try to balance the bets. Other gangs with truces often would
accept the other side of these high school bets if Bobby G.
offered. They realized that tilted Bobby G.’s bets were stacked
against the homers. Whether he laid-off the other side of the
homers bets to lock in 10% or if his gang accepted the entire risk
on a particular game, Bobby G.’s record of accomplishment had
proven correct approximately 80% of the time. The gang’s upper
echelon was very happy with his contribution to the gang’s bottom
line.

Bobby G. accidentally stumbled on another way to
earn income, which he secretively kept to himself. Because he had
ingratiated himself with many local coaches and had a working
knowledge of the associated high school teams, college recruiters
sought out his contacts and player analysis. He parlayed this
scouting function to work bilaterally. Coaches would pay him for
this information, and equally important, parents would compensate
him for advocating for their athlete. Bobby G. personally kept all
the money he earned in his role as a basketball scout or street
agent.

***

Unexpectedly, the violent crime task force began
arresting the veteranos and other higher echelons of the gang en
masse. Clearly, an informant infiltrated the gang. Bobby G.
wondered when they would come for him. Gang members on the street
were in complete disarray. The “Don” tried to issue orders from
inside the Joliet Correctional Facility, but every time he
contacted someone, the police busted him. The investigation focused
on the big three: prostitution, extortion and drug dealing. Bobby
G. waited and waited, and finally became convinced that either he
was not a target of the investigation or if the task force knew
about him, they considered illegal gambling a low priority issue.
Strangely enough, Bobby G. was able to drop the
gang flag
without having to ask permission or
court out
because his
gang no longer existed except behind bars.

Bobby G. thought about his options: join a different
gang and risk retribution if his new alliance was discovered, or
remain neutral by staying in business by himself. He decided to
focus on high school betting to fly under the radar of the
remaining gangs who preferred taking bets on pro and college games.
He was the sole person in Chicagoland who accepted high school bets
– no threats to anyone. In fact, the other gangs would become
excellent clients of his operation. His business plan was
simple:

1) continue to extensively research the local
players and teams

2) set betting lines to disadvantage the homers,
favoring the gangs who took the other side of the action

3) accept pro and college bets without actively
soliciting them

4) continue his street agent shake downs by
matchmaking second-tier college scholarship hopefuls and with
mid-major university basketball recruiters.

A few years had passed and Bobby G. was
thirty-years-old. He had taken care of many of the local Chicago
police with bribe money or street agent introductions for their
kids. Bobby G. was flagrant about his bling. He drove his BMW
throughout the streets of Chicago. Most cops waived when he roared
by except a highly motivated, over-zealous rookie. The new cop
watched Bobby G. roll by smoking a blunt the size of a huge Cohiba
cigar. He pulled Bobby over, gave him his Miranda Warning, and
roughly clamped on handcuffs.

“Com’on flatfoot. I can take care of you. We don’t
have to go through this shit.”

“Are you trying to offer a bride to a police
officer, Sir?”

Bobby changed tactics, “I have lots of friends on
the force and in the DA’s office. You don’t understand my
reach.”

The officer was not having any of it. “If I were
you, I’d shut my trap and stop incriminating yourself. You are
going to the Cook County Lockup”.

Chapter Four. Bobby G.’s NAU Connection

The holding cell in the detainee section of Cook
County’s Lockup was the oldest and least secure. Due to several
escapes in the past, the state rebuilt the area for hardened
criminals and long-timers with safety in mind. The original section
was minimally suitable for low-level crimes and new lockups. This
was not Bobby G.’s first time smelling the stench of the limestone
bricks as he walked inside and began the booking process using the
standard procedure. It smelled worse than a mildewed basketball
locker room. He treated his arrest for marijuana possession a minor
inconvenience easily rectified by one of the “heebs”.

Bobby G. was booked and processed around midnight.
He moved into the holding cage with nine other arrestees after he
was humiliated and photographed like everyone else in the shower
room. Coincidentally, his cousin Davis was already in the
overcrowded cell. The two had not seen each other since the demise
of their gang. Davis sneered at Bobby G. as though he was going to
attack him, but he waited until the two guards locked the door and
began their card game.

Clearly, Davis was agitated. He moved closer to
Bobby in a menacing way.

“What’s wrong, cuz?” asked Bobby.

“You snitched on us and ruined the club, you prick,”
he said trying to keep from arousing the guards’ attention.

“Davis, is that what you think?
On my mama,
I
swear that I had nothing to do with the downfall. No way man – I
don’t work for the pigs!”

“Shut the fuck up, man. I thought you were my
Ace
, that you had my muther fuckin’ back. While you’re
chillin’ out there, I was sentenced to an
Uno
in Joliet
Correctional for the drug business. I figure you ratted out the
whole club, you fuck.”

With that said, Davis lunged across the floor in an
effort to choke his onetime running mate. The person sitting next
to Bobby G. was Marcus Imari. Sensing that any trouble in the cage
would draw all of them into a fight, which would anger the guards,
Marcus intercepted Davis and corralled him into a headlock.

Davis struggled to breathe while in his grasp. “This
isn’t your business, big boy.”

“In here, it’s all of our business. Chill down and
I’ll let you go. These guards are going to break up your fight
swinging those damn clubs,” said Marcus as he released the pressure
on Davis’ head.

One of the guards heard the commotion and got up
from his card table chair. “What’s going on in there?”

Marcus answered, “We’re all ok. This guy slipped and
banged his head, but he’ll be alright.”

“That’s right boss,” said a slightly embarrassed
Davis. “I’m ok. It’s cool. No problem.”

When he calmed down Davis and Bobby G. talked
quietly. Bobby offered information to Davis to prove that he was
not the snitch that ruined the gang. One of the cops on Bobby G.’s
payroll told him which members ratted out the gang by turning
state’s star witnesses. At first, Davis shook his head in denial.
He could not fathom the betrayal by the people Bobby named. He
finally believed Bobby as he disclosed the particulars of the
witness protection arrangements. By telling Davis these details,
Bobby probably signed their death sentence. Davis and the remaining
gang members were unforgiving.

The two cousins caught up on lost time in a calm,
quiet conversation about gang members alive and dead. By now, Davis
had switched flags into a new gang. He was working the same drug
territory as always but with new colors. Bobby G. told Davis about
his high school sports book and street agent business.