Odd Jobs (23 page)

“That’s pretty funny. At least you have me laughing.”

“Don’t worry Jerry, we’re gonna have a lot of laughs together. It’s fun to win.”

It’s just semantics after that. Don obtains the credit card number and gets Jerry to load up on the Redskins and place his biggest bet of-the-year.

Rocky looks at me, her mouth slightly agape. “Wow!” she says.

“Pretty wild, but there’s a good chance when we run the credit card through, it’ll be maxed out. These degenerate gamblers often have the nerve to lie to the full-of-shit salesman. Then it becomes a numbers game. Our boy Don will be back on the phone in less than a minute, setting someone up for the exact opposite play by giving the Giants instead of the Redskins. If he’s any good, by the end of the day he should have 10 people playing the Giants and 10 people playing the Redskins. And if he’s really good, he will spread out both sides of four more games as well. If he’s a stud, he’ll have a hundred guys all rooting for different sides of a game.”

“But what’s the purpose of that?” Rocky asks.

“Because right after the game he will have 50 people who love him. Tomorrow’s call will offer, in the rarest twist of fate, an even better game. You always need another game to hook them long term. But to get the next one, they have to join the service for six months. No more of this one game stuff.”

Rocky asks, “So if the Redskins win the game, Don calls Jerry back, and magically there’s an even better game?”

“Wow, you’re good.” Then I add, “You ready to pick up a phone and start selling?”

“I’ll pass, but thanks for the offer. What’s surprising to me is that you really do this. It seems so out of character for you.”

I explain, “You have to get in character. That’s the whole trick. There’s a lot of rationalization happening and neither side are angels. A great salesman named Sean Gallop is an animal lover who hates hunters. When Sean sells, he uses the name Hunter Pierce, and in his mind everyone is some backward-ass hick who is bagging a deer or moose after his phone call, unless the mighty Sean Gallop can bring him down. He’s actually saving animals in his mind. The bottom line is that these salesmen are not themselves. That’s how they rationalize this existence.”

Rocky looks at the phone lights flashing. “How do you rationalize? What do you pretend?”

“Me? I don’t pretend. It’s not a joke for me. The stakes are very high and I need a lot of money to nail Balducci. I’m bringing in an ungodly amount of drugs and that costs money. This business is hard to fund, but right upstairs from here I have my bookie operation, and that has huge profit and loss swings. So I guess my motivation remains to get Balducci no matter what. In this case, sell my ass off in this sports scam and keep my head above water and my body above ground. It’s enough for me.”

“That’s motivation,” she agrees.

“C’mon,” I say, “you want to see the bookie operation?”

“How can a girl say no to an offer like that? You really know what to say to a lady.”

A flight of stairs separates Luke’s Action Sports from the bookie operation. Rocky and I walk up these stairs and I take her to the office marked at eye level by a black name plate and white letters reading Hempstead Equipment. Rocky looks at the name on the door and before she asks, I say, “It was Loot’s idea to pay tribute to our home town and all. Seems harmless enough.”

“It’s nice to see sentimental guys in this day and age,” Rocky says.

I open the door with my key, which catches the guys inside by surprise. Carey is seated and running numbers on his spreadsheet. Loot is standing behind Carey, no doubt giving him instructions on what was probably something already done correctly. They’re shaking, but when they see Rocky and me enter the room, they give us a big grin.

Loot walks over and gives Rocky a hug, which surprises her, as she has been gazing at all the display boards marked up with felt markers. Details like point spreads, underdogs, favorites, home teams, away teams, parlays, teasers and exactas are scrawled on boards that have more numbers than a Wall Street trading floor. When Rocky realizes that she is in Loot’s grasp, she hugs him back. Loot embraces me next and says, “We got some sweet business going.”

“Where’s most of the action?”

“Pretty spread out, Kev.”

Carey barely notices us as he continues typing on his spreadsheet. When it gets close to game time he really gets his game face on. “Carey, where’s the overall risk standing right now?”

Carey checks the spreadsheets and asks, “Without the junk?”

“No junk.” I see Rocky is confused by the last comment. “Junk means the gimmick bets that gamblers are offered, like a parlay. Parlaying is a way to link together a number of wagers on a chance to make even more money. So you might link three bets together and if you win, you win a lot. But if you lose any part of it, that’s it. You lose the entire bet. Picking three winners is tough; it gives the gambler better payouts, but it’s a huge advantage for the house. So we discount the risk of junk when we try to gauge how much we will potentially payout if we lose.”

Rocky looks up again at the writing on the display boards. I can see her calculating. “There are so many ways someone can bet on the same game. Do you guys lose a lot?”

I smile at Loot and Carey. “Yeah, we lose. It’s good that we lose also. If our clients never won, they wouldn’t be back. They wouldn’t be telling their friends how much fun they’re having.”

“Yo, Kev,” Carey barks. “$45,000 total wagered. $25,000 is matched.”

“Okay, so we have exposure to $20,000?”

“Yup,” Carey answers.

“How much in junk bets?” I ask. Carey answers, “Not quite $8,000.”

Knowing my next comment will curl their skin, I say, “Good, let’s lay some off.”

Loot and Carey look at each other, startled and frustrated. Carey is laid back about most things, but it kills him when I lay the risk off. “C’mon, Kev, there’s nothing special about tonight, we can handle it,” he pleads.

I don’t want to make a big deal in front of Rocky and I don’t want to pull them over into a sidebar that excludes Rocky. “Guys,” I laugh in an effort to soothe egos, “please just humor me. Don’t ya want me to be able to sleep at night? Just give Petrocelli a call.”

“Kevin, if we got to do it, if we have to lay some bets off, let me go to this other guy I met,” Carey pleads. “He charges a five percent vig and Petro charges 10 percent. And Petro is such an asshole about collecting and paying. We can do better.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m gonna think some more about that, but in the meantime, do me a favor and lay 15 dimes off with Petro.”

“Fuck meeee!” Carey blurts out. He storms off in frustration with the look of a pissed-off three-year-old kid who was just instructed not to stick his father’s screwdriver in an electric socket. Carey dramatically plops down and starts dialing the phone, no doubt to call Petro. Loot shoots me a look; he doesn’t say anything, just rolls his eyes, like my decision is so wrong that it’s not worth wasting words on me.

The phones are ringing and Rocky notices the other bookmakers, six in total, working the lines. We can hear them confirm the team, the point spread and the amount. The good ones remind the players about teasers and parlays, attempting to rope them in.

Carey hangs up a phone and screams, “The Whale just came in. He’s in for five dimes today.”

“The Whale is a well-respected New York senator, if that makes any sense,” I explain to Rocky. “Let me guess, he’s playing three dimes spread out to the tune of a nickel each on six games, all being the favorites. Then with the other $10,000, he’s betting against the Gorillas. Is that right?”

Carey checks the wagers and says, “Yup, that’s it. You know your customers.”

Loot notices that Rocky is a bit lost and explains, “The Senator has a very strong gambling bug. We bookies love it when people consistently take the favorites, which are to the advantage of the house, but we also love emotional gamblers. No matter who the New York State Gorillas are playing, Senator Murphy, or as we affectionately call him, Senator Whale, will always take the Gorilla’s opponent. The best theory on this pattern stems from when he himself was a student at New York State and caught his sorority-president fiancée in bed with two Gorilla football players. He always plays a bunch of favorites and bets against the Gorillas every game without fail.”

“We call him the Whale because he bets so damn much,” I add. “Ours is not to question why, ours is to collect his money.”

Suddenly Carey breaks in. “Let’s not lay this new bet that just came in from the Whale. Let’s run with the number.” He’s got an uncharacteristically irritated look and I don’t want to get into anything with him in front of Rocky.

“Okay, Carey, let’s go with it. If you don’t want to lay any of the Whale off to Petro, it’s cool.”

Loot perks up and says, “Way to be a man, Kevin.”

I laugh and give Loot the finger. I face Rocky and say, “I could use some fresh air. You feel like taking a walk?” After saying that, I look at Loot to make him think he’s the reason I need fresh air, and he affectionately gives me the finger.

The truth is the last thing I need is cold Albany air, but I do need some alone time with Rocky. Now that I showed her these operations, I needed to talk with her uninterrupted somewhere.

In front of our meager office building there is a quiet bus stop. We sit on the bus stop bench, surrounded by billboards plugging movies and featuring anti-drug messages. I don’t read the ads but I am thankful they are there to block the wind. Rocky asks me, “So were Loot and Carey right? Does Petro charge you too much money to lay off bets?”

“Yeah, he charges way too much,” I answer. “And we always catch him trying to get cute with the betting lines. Plus, he’s hard to collect from. It’s easier to pick up a 300-pound barbell than it is to pick up money he owes us. The funny thing
is when we owe him money, he wants us to make like Star Trek and beam it right over to him. The guy is a total asshole.”

“But, Kevin,” Rocky asks, “if you have other options, why go to him?”

I explain that this is the point that Loot and Carey don’t really understand. Sometimes they think I’m trying to run a business here. Like I care about making any more money. “This guy Petro is a snake, but I need him.”

“How so?”

Now I’m in that tough spot. I want to tell Rocky everything and show her everything. I’m scared like hell she’s going to leave me, but it’s important for me to show her what I’m involved in. “I don’t want to be doing shit behind your back,” I say. “Then again, there’s also a point where if I tell you something, it might be worse for you in the long term. I can put you in some unnecessary danger, or I could send you running for the hills. I think talking about Petro would do one or both of those. Will you let me off the hook and let me not talk about Petro?”

“Sure.” She hesitates, and then says, “I can live with that. And by the way, I won’t run for the hills. You’re stuck with me.”

Yeah, that’s what Rocky is saying but what about when she knows more? Shit, how am I ever going to explain Petro to her? When I said I would do anything to get at Balducci — even hanging with Petro is going above and beyond. Well as dumb and as ruthless as he is, maybe Rocky will appreciate how creative he is. It’s certainly what he prides himself on.

A few months back, Petro shot and killed Al Lassiter a 6’2”, 280-pound gregarious guy with a huge personality to match. The problem was, his huge personality couldn’t pay the tax money that Petro was charging him as Big Al’s Steakhouse was failing.

Petro wanted me to accompany him to the funeral two days later. A rabbi presiding over the service was nasal and insincere. It was clear his eulogy was a canned speech, but what was most surprising to me was that instead of calling him Al Lassiter, the rabbi referred to the deceased as Hilda Goldberg. Petro usually presents himself as the ultimate stone-cold bastard, but witnessing my confusion was making him giggle like he was watching Bugs Bunny.