“That’s right. Easiest fucking thing I’ve ever done. We clear a million bucks a week! I used the money to build a beautiful beach resort in Sanya near Hong Kong. Everything going great, then the money dried up. Now work is stopped, and my builder’s yelling to get paid. I’m in deep shit.”
“What happened?”
Broken Tooth had worked himself into a lather. He lit up a fresh cigarette to calm down. Several puffs later, he spoke. “FIFA,” he said.
“You mean the guys running international soccer ruined your deal.”
“Yeah. Greedy assholes killed the duck that laid golden egg.”
“You mean the goose.”
“Shut up.”
“Sorry. Were you paying them off?”
“Fuck, no. You don’t bet on sports; you don’t understand. Three biggest sports in the world for gambling are soccer, horse racing, and tennis. That’s where all the money is if you’re going to fix an event. Everything else chickenshit. You with me so far?”
“I’m with you.”
“Used to be lots of fixed tennis matches, mostly small tournaments. People governing the sport wised up, started monitoring gambling sites. If they saw a big swing in odds on a match, they alerted the tournament, and the officials would put heat on the players. That put an end to it. That left horse racing and soccer. You ever fix a horse race?”
“Once.”
“No like?”
“Not my cup of tea. Too many things can go wrong.”
“You’re telling me. Horse breaks leg, you lose a whole bunch of dough. Too risky. That leaves soccer. Hundreds of soccer matches played all over the world every week. Lots of teams in smaller leagues, players don’t get paid on time, they hate owners.”
“They have a grudge.”
“Right. It’s easy to fix those matches and get the favorite team to lose. We would place bets on a few hundred sites and spread the pain around. No one loses too much, while we win big.”
“How did FIFA screw this up for you?”
“Assholes running FIFA live like kings. Stay in fancy hotels, eat gourmet meals, pull down big salaries. Should be enough, only they were greedy and started taking bribes from countries wanting to hold international events. They get caught, and shit hits the fan.”
“You mean the police are scrutinizing soccer now.”
“Interpol, FBI, Scotland Yard, they’re all involved. Too many cops.”
“So you stopped fixing matches, and the money dried up.”
“There you go. Things started to look real bad. I’ve been a gangster since I was fifteen, didn’t know what else to do. I came to Las Vegas to get away from things. Then last week while I was watching the playoffs on TV I had an idea. I’ll fix the biggest sporting event in world and make enough money to finish my resort. That’s where you come in, Cunningham. You’re going to help me get this done.”
The words were slow to sink in. There was only one major sporting event on the horizon, and it would generate more than a billion dollars in wagers, from office pools to illegal bookmakers. The Super Bowl was right around the corner, and this crazy little bastard wanted to fix it.
“It will never work,” he said.
“Why not? Because no one’s had the balls to do it before? That’s the best kind of sporting event to fix. No one sees it coming.”
“How do you plan to pull this off?”
“Easy. We spot fix.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Super Bowl has a hundred different proposition bets gamblers can bet on,” Broken Tooth explained. “No other sporting event has this. Which team wins the coin toss, which team scores first, that sort of thing. We spot fix four prop bets, make a killing.”
“But you need the players to do this.”
“I’ve got inside information on dirty players with the Rebels. You’re going to approach them, talk them into spot fixing. I make the bets; we split the winnings. I’ll make you rich.”
The conference championships had taken place earlier that day, and the Las Vegas Rebels and the Louisville Volunteers had won their games with gritty, come-from-behind victories and were now headed to the Super Bowl in Phoenix in two weeks. Broken Tooth had watched the games and, believing that certain Rebel players could be compromised, had come up with a plan.
“Which prop bets do you have in mind?” Billy asked.
“First injury, first penalty, most penalties, and who wins the coin toss.”
“How do you plan to rig the coin toss?”
“That’s your job. If you can rig a roulette wheel, you can rig a coin toss.”
“Can I think about this?”
“No. I want your answer now.”
It was not uncommon for other hustlers to approach Billy with jobs. If Billy said no, the other hustler went away. But this situation was different. If he said no, Broken Tooth might kill him out of spite. He glanced into the lanai. Pepper and Misty sat on the pool edge wrapped in towels. They were chatting up the little ones, trying to make nice. There was no doubt in his mind that his crew would meet untimely ends as well. He had read enough about the Triad mentality to know that they believed a bullet in the head solved most of life’s problems.
Seen in that light, he didn’t have much choice but to say yes. But that didn’t make him a believer. Fixing a lowly soccer match in some jerkwater country where the local cops spent the day sleeping at their desks was one thing; fixing the biggest sporting event in the world was another, and the odds were slim that he could pull it off. But he could go along to buy himself time so he could figure a way out of this jam.
“Time up. You in or not?”
The orange tip of Broken Tooth’s foul cigarette glowed in the dark. If he answered too quickly, Broken Tooth would know he was being played. He let a moment pass.
“I’m in,” Billy said.
Six
Going onto the lanai, Broken Tooth chopped the air like he was breaking a board. The little ones rose from their chairs and followed their boss through the slider into the house. Billy had noticed that Broken Tooth avoided using verbal commands with his men, preferring to signal what he wanted done with his hands or facial expressions. That was smart, since no one would ever be able to say that they heard Broken Tooth order his men to commit an illegal act.
Billy’s crew visibly relaxed and turned their attention to him.
“What does the crazy bastard want?” Gabe asked.
“Guess,” Billy said, heading for the slider.
“Don’t tell me he wants to work with us.”
“That’s right. Our reputations precede us.”
“Jesus Christ, what did you tell him?”
“I said yes. I didn’t have much of a choice.”
He followed Broken Tooth through the house and out the front door to the driveway with his crew a few steps behind him. Broken Tooth retrieved from his rental an eight-by-ten manila envelope, which he slapped into Billy’s chest.
“What’s this?” Billy asked.
“Information on the Rebel players who will fix the game,” Broken Tooth said.
“How can you be so sure these guys will do this?”
“Because they did it before, and you’re going to convince them to do it again.”
“That’s a tall order, don’t you think?”
“I’ll give you an incentive.”
Broken Tooth twirled his finger and pointed. The little ones grabbed Leon and dragged him across the front lawn. The rental’s trunk was popped open and Leon thrown inside.
“What the hell are you doing?” Billy said.
“Insurance policy,” Broken Tooth said. “I’ll keep your driver until this is over. That way, you won’t try to double-cross me.”
“You don’t trust me.”