Private (Private 1)

“Anything else?”

“None of the players are betting on their games.”

Sapok nodded. “If the players are putting in a fix, I don’t know about it.” He dropped the spreadsheet into a bucket of water he kept next to his desk.

The spreadsheet and all other documents in the bookie’s office were printed on rice paper. I watched the pages and the ink that was printed on them dissolve in the water.

&nb

sp; Sapok asked, “Mr. Kreutzer is your uncle? Is that right?”

I nodded. “More like a father, actually.”

“There’s something else he thought you should see. We’ve got a certain client who’s into us for over six hundred thousand dollars. He’s in big trouble. Could have a fatal outcome.”

“A football player?” I asked.

Sapok wrote block letters on a pad of paper, turned the pad so I could read it, then ripped off the top page, which followed the spreadsheet into the bucket of water.

The rice paper dissolved, but the afterimage of those block letters hung in front of my eyes.

Sapok had written down my brother’s name.

Tom Morgan Jr.

Tommy owed over $600,000 to the Mob.

Chapter 32

I THANKED BARNEY Sapok and left his place of business in a fury. I wasn’t mad at Sapok. That guy was trying to help by telling me about Tommy’s $600,000 debt. Clearly, Uncle Fred wanted me to know that Tommy was in trouble, and that he couldn’t help Tommy himself.

Fred and Tommy hadn’t spoken in a dozen years. I’d never known what their fight was about, but Tommy held grudges and he had a big one against Uncle Fred. I guessed that Fred had tried to stop Tom from getting into a jam like the one he was in now, and of course my brother had resented it.

I was enraged at Tommy and I was disgusted with him. And I didn’t know what to do next.

Through Tommy, I’d become familiar with the cycle of the sickness. Gamblers gamble for the rush. It goes from compulsion to addiction. They win and place another bet. They lose, which is far more likely, and the elation turns to deflation, and they bet again to cover the loss. Either way, they keep betting.

Small losses go onto their tab with their bookie. If the debt isn’t paid, the Mob’s loan sharks sometimes move in. The interest on the loan, the vigorish, is obscenely high and it’s due weekly. Too often, the bettor can’t gather enough money to pay back the principal, and when he falls behind on the vig, the threats start, and then the beatings. The next thing he knows, a Mob guy owns his business.

Tommy had a business. He was doing okay. But a weekly interest charge of 20 percent on a $600,000 loan? That was $12,000 a week before he ever put a dent in the principal.

Had Tommy borrowed against his house? His business? Was he hanging over the abyss by his fingertips, or was he already falling into a bottomless hole? Sapok had said the outcome could be fatal.

I ran up the winding stairway to my office and told Colleen that I couldn’t be interrupted.

I spent a couple of hours making calls. And then I phoned Tommy at his office.

I told his assistant, “Don’t give me any bull, Katherine. Put him on.”

Tommy’s voice came over the line. He sounded reluctant and irritated, but he agreed to have lunch with me at one o’clock.

Chapter 33

TOMMY, WHO HAD always been a control freak, picked the restaurant where we would meet. Crustacean is a popular Euro-Vietnamese place on Santa Monica, a few doors down from his office.

I told him I’d be there in twenty minutes, and twenty minutes later on the nose, I walked through the front door.

I gave my name to the hostess, who walked me across the glass-covered stream of live koi and settled me with a menu in “Mr. Tommy’s booth” near the fountain.