Odd Jobs

by Ben Lieberman

  “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.

  I asked, “Who the fuck is Hilda Goldberg?”

  Before Rabbi Nasal could finish, Petro said, “C’m
on, let’s go.”

  Petro situated himself a few feet from the black hearse that was waiting for the coffin at the bottom of the steps. While waiting, Petro explained that Hilda Goldberg not only made the greatest kugel in the world, but never missed a Petro tax payment. In his infinite wisdom Petro explained, “You haven’t lived until you ate good kugel and good pussy.”

  “Petro, aren’t we here to see Al Lassiter’s funeral?”

  Petro explained, “The woman in that box wasn’t 5-feet tall and she weighed 90 pounds tops, but she was one tough broad. She had a restaurant for 50 years. Shit, she ran it for 20 years on her own after her husband bought the farm. Tiny little woman like that, and she never missed a fucking tax payment to me. Not one. And the kugel she made was fucking unreal. But that fat-fuck Lassiter, he couldn’t make his payments, could he? Lassiter should’ve learned from a great gal like old Hilda. Then maybe, someday everyone would’ve called him Old Man Lassiter.”

  The congregation fell into a respectful formation to allow the pallbearers to bring the casket to the hearse. While the men holding the casket looked healthy enough, there were problems. The eight men wobbled on the ice, nearly tipping the casket, and Petro kept laughing. Another man from the congregation jumped in to help this tricky procession down the steps. The additional pallbearer made Petro laugh even harder. Petro turned to his favorite goon, Rich Bennett, and almost choking with laughter said, “Geeee, you see that, you see that? They had to add another guy. Geeeeee.”

  Bennett was laughing. “Yeah, Petro, they still might not make it.”

  Petro, not even trying to suppress his laugh said, “Yeah, kugel, you should put that on your list to do before you die. Eat some kugel.”

  “But what about Lassiter? Is his funeral next?”

  The coffin swayed all the way from the left and then nearly as dramatically to the right but there were still many difficult steps before this group of pallbearers could orchestrate a smooth landing. Petro in between laughing said, “C’mon, Rich, tell me the truth, geeeee. You put some bricks in there for effect? These guys carrying the coffin can’t be that lame. C’mon, tell me the truth, Rich.”

  Rich answered, “I swear on my mother, no bricks Petro. No fucking bricks, just Fat Al Lassiter.”

  Petro wiped tears from his eyes as the struggle down the stairs was winding down, “Oh, this is too good.” Petro saw my confusion over Rich Bennett’s comment and in between gasps for air said, “Double-decker coffin. Inside Hilda’s coffin, under all the nice silk and bedding, we added some extra cushion for her. We put that fat-fuck Al Lassiter underneath her.”

  In amazement I looked at the group wobbling and struggling and asked, “Right now? He’s in there right now?”

  “Geeeeeeee, it’s un-fucking real. These assholes think they are carrying a 90-pound old lady, but they got her 90 pounds plus Fat Al’s pounds. All 280 fucking pounds of him.”

  All I could muster was, “Holy shit.”

  Petro stopped laughing enough to compose himself. He looked at me and said, “Fucking Al, would eat all his fucking profit and try to leave me holding my cock. Like I’m not entitled to my tax payment or something. Now he can spend the rest of eternity learning from that great gal Hilda Goldberg, who never missed a payment.

  He explained with his ingenious system there’s no need to chop people up or drop someone in a lake wrapped in chains. “Hell, we used to boil people to make them unidentifiable. It was all so messy. With this system, who is ever going to find guys like Fat Al? The best part is, we get to watch people busting their nut carrying the load for us. We don’t even have to dig the fucking ditch.” Petro sees my amazement and asked, “Whaddaya think of my system?”

  I tried to stay calm. Petro was looking for some reaction and I needed to be in his good graces, so I said, “I can’t help thinking that when rigor mortis sets in and everything gets stiff, that Fat Al Lassiter could be sporting wood and giving it to Hilda in the pail for eternity.”

  Petro drew that far-fetched mental image and broke out laughing again. He slapped me on my shoulder and screamed,

  “Yeah, getting it in the ass for eternity from Fat Al Lassiter; Ha!” Then he asked, “So, am I brilliant or what?”

  I’m thinking now, I’d be pretty brilliant if I can explain this to Rocky. Let her digest my business first, and then I’ll get into my relationships.

  I put my arm around Rocky and kiss her neck. Her skin is cold from the frosty weather but still so soft, the contrast from my warm kiss and her cold neck adds to the sensuality. Rocky closes her eyes and moves her head back, offering more of her neck. “See what I mean?” she says. “Why would I run away from this?”

  I look at her seriously so she knows I mean business. “This whole college is full of winners. There are guys lining up power jobs, guys really going places. All of those guys would step over and crush each other to be here with you. Why are you wasting your time with me? Why aren’t you running for those hills?”

  “It’s kind of funny to me. I see you managing all these different things and you have a confidence and certainty like no one that I ever met, including those so-called winners you talk about. But then you say things to me like, why aren’t I running away?”

  “Maybe because the stuff I do can land people in jail and also promote physical harm,” I remind her.

  “Yeah, I’m not naïve about those risks. But even if those risks didn’t exist, for some reason, you don’t think you deserve to be happy. For some reason, you don’t think you deserve to get the girl. I’ve been giving this whole thing a lot of thought lately. It’s hard to get you out of my mind. I’ll admit, now that I’m involved with you, I wish you weren’t part of these businesses, but I knew going in that you were doing this. The drugs and bookie business don’t scare me. My feelings for you...that’s what’s scary.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. Look, I went out with a lot of girls. Of course, they weren’t like you, Rocky.” I also can’t help myself from thinking that they weren’t C.W. Wellington, either. “And by the way,” I continue, “you weren’t doing too bad yourself in the dating department.”

  “Yes, but I never dated anyone for more than two weeks,” she explains.

  What’s that even supposed to mean? Does she have some sort of time limit? Why only two weeks? What’s up with that? “What? Why?”

  “That’s what I’ve been giving so much thought to,” Rocky says, her cold breath rising about her head like a halo. “You talk about all these bankers and lawyers like they are the greatest catch. I was looking for the opposite, for the anti-catch. I was looking for the escape hatch.”

  “Obviously, you can explain that,” I say with an uncomfortable smile.

  “As half-baked as this may sound, a lot of girls around here judge a successful college experience by having a cool boyfriend. I didn’t make that concept up; this philosophy exists and, right or wrong, I felt the peer pressure to a degree.” I nod, but I don’t really know what I’m nodding to. Rocky continues. “I know I should be a big girl and say, if I’m ready for a boyfriend great, if I’m not ready, then that’s my own business. But in reality, I started dating guys I thought my friends would like.

  “The one thing I made sure of,” she goes on to say, “was all these guys had some faults I could make clear to my friends, so that I could dust them when the time came. I honestly don’t think I was doing this on purpose, but in any case I’m not particularly proud of this behavior. It wasn’t like it was two weeks every time, but when a certain expectation to get physically or emotionally closer came due, I would push the eject button, you know, open the escape hatch. All these guys had an escape hatch. I didn’t realize I was doing this, but I know it now. The truth is I just couldn’t get comfortable with guys. It comes pretty easy to a lot of people; it used to come easy to me. I used to be so proud of how close I was with my father. Who in this world are you supposed to be closer with?”

  Rocky is beginning to choke on h
er words. I have my arm around her, with the intention of making her feel better but hell, I might be pushing her away further. “Rocky, what you went through was crazy. We don’t have to talk about this any more.”

  “Yes,” she says, “yes, we do. I want to show you everything. I want you to know what you’re getting into also. Please, ask me stuff.”

  I hesitate and say, “So you wouldn’t go out with me originally because I didn’t fit in with your friends’ profile of the right guy?”

  “Just the opposite. My friends think you’re way cute.” She sees me blush a little. “Look, Kevin, you keep thinking when you were asking me out, I was saying no because of what you didn’t have. It was just the reverse. I knew you were different; I always thought there was something special about you and it took me by surprise. It was hard for me to put my finger on it, but I felt something was there. Then, the more time I spent with you, the more it started getting clearer.

  “Because of the illegal stuff, it would have been real easy for me to dust you in a couple of weeks. But while you were trying to be honest with me and scare me off, seeing your motivation made me want to stay. The thing I admire about you the most? You’re not willing to be a victim. I am so damn frustrated being a victim! I’ve been totally and completely changed because of what happened to me. I don’t act like I should and I don’t feel like I should. I feel helpless and powerless. But not you. You’re doing something about it. I don’t care how dangerous your plan is. I admire you so much for not letting yourself be a victim.”

  “Rocky,” I say at last, “not a lot of people can imagine how I feel about the situation I’m in, but you understand. I know you feel alone with your issues, but I don’t want you to be alone. Let’s just keep talking. I’ll help you any way I can. There’s no hurry for anything, and I’m glad I made it past the two-week mark with you.” I laugh as I wipe away two tears that have trickled down her face. “I’m looking forward to a bunch of two weeks. Believe me, I didn’t plan these strong feelings for you, either, but I’m glad to have them. Nice surprises don’t happen often, but when they do, you really got to appreciate them. And, baby, I really appreciate every minute with you.”