The God Game

by Jeffrey Round

  “Bradley thinks it has to do with the power plant cancellations a couple years back.”

  “That issue is dead. What happened was disgusting, but as far as I know it’s all come out in the wash.”

  “Bradley thinks otherwise. And he believes it got John Wilkens murdered.”

  Will glanced off, as though gathering scraps of thought in the dark corners of his mind. “It’s politics,” he said at last. “It’s a nasty business. Many have killed for it and many more have died.”

  “So it’s possible.”

  “Possible, yes. Likely, no. Wilkens was suspended for suspected misappropriation of funds. The allegations against him were pretty serious. Everyone seems to think he committed suicide to avoid the charges that no doubt would have been coming his way down the line. I’ve been looking into some of them, in fact. I can’t discuss —”

  Dan put up his hands. “I’m not asking you to do that. I was just wondering what you might have heard.”

  “I can’t think of any connection between Tony Moran and John Wilkens, except that John was the opposition critic for Peter’s boss, Alec Henderson, as you’ve probably discovered.”

  “I had.”

  “Other than that, I doubt there was much opportunity for their paths to cross. John was old money and a long-time Conservative with an attractive wife. Tony and Peter are working-class boys, openly gay, and pretty far left as Liberals go. I always wondered why Hansen wasn’t with the NDP. In any case, the abyss between them and John would have been very wide.” He paused. “Funny thing, though. John was said to be a likely candidate for House Speaker if the Conservatives ever got back in power. It shows a willingness to put aside his own views in the interests of impartiality. Maybe that indicates an ambivalence in his political views. Who can say how deep his convictions really were?”

  “Have you heard of any behind-the-scenes shenanigans by people trying to fix elections?”

  Will’s expression was incredulous. “Fix elections? You meaning rigging ballot boxes and such? That’s Third-World politics, Dan. It doesn’t happen here.”

  “What about people hired to help swing votes by the manipulation of media buzz, and so on.”

  Will laughed gently. “That happens all the time. They’re called opinion makers. Sure, there is always something afoot. ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,’ as they say. It’s completely legal, so long as you don’t say anything untrue about the candidates. If you do, you’re going to be facing libel charges. Probably from me.”

  Dan shook his head. “What about someone hired to damage political careers? Making sure candidates are sidelined for one reason or another?”

  “Hired by whom?”

  “I don’t know. This is the theory Bradley’s working on. He tells me there’s an individual who can make things happen to promising candidates, who then quietly or otherwise fade from prominence. He calls him or her the Magus.”

  “Like some sort of mysterious conjuror? C’mon! You’re kidding me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “A fixer, in other words. Someone who can make or break a promising career.” Will shook his head. “While it sounds good on paper, it doesn’t work that way in reality. It’s the popular vote that counts. Look how many people voted for Mayor Ford in the last election. Even after that crack-smoking video surfaced, the man is still popular. There’s no accounting for stupidity, Daniel. You know what they say: people get the government they deserve. All we can do is put up a better candidate and hope good sense will prevail next time.”

  “One would hope.”

  Will glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry to cut things short. I’ve got a caucus meeting in five minutes. One of the parties is hiring a campaign strategist for the upcoming election. Apparently my opinion is important.” He smiled. “My mundane life. You know how it goes.”

  Dan stood. “Thanks for your time, Will. I appreciate your candour. You were the first person who came to mind when I heard Bradley’s allegations. I also thought it would be good to catch up.”

  “I wish you luck in finding Tony. For what it’s worth, and totally off the record, I never believed Peter and Tony would last. I always felt Tony was too lightweight for a political spouse. Maybe he’s just trying to get away.”

  Dan nodded knowingly. “And taking the bank accounts with him. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “And for what it’s worth …” He held Dan’s gaze. “I don’t think John Wilkens was murdered.”

  “I didn’t take the allegations too seriously. I just wondered what you thought.”

  Will held out his hand. They shook.

  “Watch out for Bradley. He’s trouble. In the meantime, if I hear of anything, I’ll let you know. You know what they say — the walls have ears. Doubly so in politics.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do the same.”

  Six

  The Devil’s Bible

  Dan left Queen’s Park and headed east, armed with the list of addresses Peter Hansen had said his husband frequented. He’d been right in thinking them gambling dens of various sorts. The first two looked as though they’d been visited by legal authorities not long before he got there. Heavy padlocks and wire grills pulled across the entrances warned would-be bet-makers that their luck had run out, at least for now.

  If Tony Moran gambled for excitement, Dan knew, then chances were it wasn’t simply the lure of the wager that attracted him, but also the need to be where he could share the roller-coaster highs and lows of winning and losing. In that case, the fixed-wage betting booths like Champions on the Danforth, where old men in short-sleeved shirts and linen trousers hung about on the sidewalks waiting for a favourite horse to come in, would not have held his interest long. No, it would have to be someplace grittier, someplace disreputable. Winning in public had its appeal, but for the type of gambler who likes the thrill of beating the odds, an audience of peers is required. Or maybe there were other factors sending Tony to dens in dismal basements. Loans, for one thing. If he’d had his funds cut off, as Peter declared, then he would need to find another source. There was always some shark willing to loan out what he knew he could get back fourfold by the end of the day. It didn’t take higher math to calculate the odds on that one.

  No one knows for sure who laid the first wager. It might have been old Satan in the Garden of Eden tempting Adam and Eve with his apple trick: Go ahead, the odds are good today. Chances are no one will see you do it. C’mon. Whatcha wanna bet? If it was that moment, then house bias was already in play long before anyone could outlaw it.

  Many of the old games are still popular today: poker, craps, blackjack, and roulette have been around for centuries. Legend has it a form of keno was used to raise the funds that built the Great Wall of China. There are as many ways to gamble as things to gamble on. Whenever anything contains an element of chance, someone will lay odds on the outcome. Sports, political elections, the sex of a royal baby, the statistical probability of whether a single bullet loaded in the barrel of a gun will fire when it’s your turn to pull the trigger, or the added frisson of betting whether the cobra in the wicker basket will bite you or the fool seated beside you when it’s loosed. But there is always a bright side: if you lose, there’s no need to worry about collecting.

  Gamblers have pressed four-leaf clovers into their wallets, while others have turned to charms like allspice and horseshoes the way the devoted light candles to the saints. Animal body parts have long been prized as talismans, the most popular being lucky rabbit’s feet (not so lucky for the rabbit, Dan thought), alligator teeth, and even a raccoon penis (a.k.a. the “coon dong”), the latter said to be especially potent when wrapped in a $20 bill. But then gamblers weren’t always the smartest or luckiest people on earth. Sometimes they needed all the help they could muster while their wives sat at home cursing them and the kiddies wished daddy would just come back and eat a decent
meal with them once in a while. Losing your husband to another woman was bad enough, but when that woman turned out to be Lady Luck herself, she was damn near impossible to beat.

  As addictions went, Dan knew, gambling was one of the less physically harmful. It caused none of the vein depletions and skin lesions of heroin and crack. It wouldn’t dry your liver or rot your brain. In fact, many gamblers lived to a ripe old age. But as psychological addictions went, it was one of the worst. For centuries, mothers had lamented it, lovers feared it. Families had been sacrificed for the roll of a die, kingdoms lost to the turn of a card.

  And that was just for starters. Many were the men who ended up face-down in a freshly dug grave for want of a payback plan to satisfy their backers. Others spent their last few moments of conscious recollection on riverbeds or falling from bridges over ravines and gorges designed for more spectacular viewing pleasures.

  In olden days, upper-class women were not supposed to gamble. But set up a prohibition and eventually someone will try to get around it. Thus the fashionable women of England in the late eighteenth century who came to be known as the Faro Ladies came about, hosting private parties and turning cards late into the night.

  Most countries today allow gambling, but if you can’t find something to suit your tastes you can always turn to the internet to squander your wages. It’s said that the Fool, the tarot card designated with the number zero, is a man ruined by gambling. One of the most popular folk-rock songs of all time tells the fate of a card shark who goes down to infamy in New Orleans.

  Dan Sharp’s Aunt Marge called a pack of cards the Devil’s Bible, adding gambling to the list of sins she asked young Danny never to engage in — swearing, drinking, and lying chief among them. At ten, he’d promised away any and all future indulgences just to put a smile on her face, never for a moment thinking he might wish it otherwise as he grew older. Later, he’d been amazed that sex hadn’t been number one on that list. Perhaps she’d thought his only salvation there lay in total ignorance.

  He thought of his Aunt Marge with a smile when he finally struck it lucky at an address in Little Vietnam. The street was tucked away on a rise behind the train tracks. The man leaning against the door twirled a toothpick between his lips as he scrutinized Dan, giving a hard look at the scar on the side of his face.

  “Tony Moran said I might have a good game in here,” Dan said.

  A grin cracked the man’s otherwise non-expressive face. He inclined his head and nodded Dan inside, shutting the door quickly behind them.

  A Buddha sat amid an offering of oranges and incense sticks, winking a knowing eye like a jolly proprietor. It was Fat Buddha, the Buddha later in his career after he’d passed many trials and penetrated through to the core of reality and found nothingness there, as well as a whole lot to eat. Fat Buddha is the guy you want on your side when you’re looking for luck. Fat Buddha is the key to happiness. Dan winked back as he passed the Buddha by.

  From outside, the house had appeared to be a modest bungalow. Inside, however, it was deceptively long and labyrinthine, with a dark hallway twisting along to a partially concealed door. The man gestured for him to follow. One flight down revealed a concrete floor and bare walls, with storage space for an ancient washer-dryer. It was the smell of smoke seeping up from somewhere unseen that gave the next level away. Dan followed his keeper down a second flight of stairs in near darkness.

  At the bottom, a door opened onto a low-ceilinged chamber hollowed out among the rocks and supported by beams of wood. It might once have been intended as a bomb shelter. Dan thought it unlikely the crypt-like space would show up on any city plans. Even the rats would give it a pass.

  The room resembled a cliché of gambling dens circa the late eighteenth century: dimly lit, smoke-filled, and with consumptive-looking men seated around small tables. All it needed was for someone to be inhaling from an opium pipe and a few prostitutes lingering off to the side for local colour.

  Dan sniffed. The air had a peculiar tang to it: the smell of loss and desperation. For all the brightness and warmth of the day outside, in here there was a chill that probably never left the room. Thirteen men crowded around two tables. A baker’s dozen. None of them resembled the traditional card shark dressed in a natty suit and making smart quips between plays. This was not a Las Vegas–style operation. Most of them looked as though they’d spent far too long in that windowless dungeon two floors below street level.

  The game was blackjack. In a place like this, Dan knew the stakes were on individual skill. Best player wins. A casino relied on luck and the odds that said you can’t hold out forever in a game of chance where the Wheel of Fortune is the ultimate winner. But not here.

  Dan approached one of the tables and took a seat. Five pairs of eyes flickered in his direction, as if noting a change in the air currents. No one looked at him directly. It was a coded match. To do or say anything overt might be dangerous. The trick lay in deciphering eye movements and hand gestures. This wasn’t a place for casual greetings and social get-togethers. These men were serious about their game. And, for the moment at least, not much else. Air raid sirens might go off outside and none of them would stir until the last card was turned.

  When it came his turn, Dan looked at the dealer and nodded. The man’s eyes showed no glimmer of light. His teeth were long and wolf-like, jaundice yellow. He flashed what was meant to pass for a smile. It was like looking into the face of Lucifer himself.

  A card shot in Dan’s direction. He picked it up — a black deuce — and stole a look at the anchor on the dealer’s right. The anchor’s expression was less forbidding, but still inscrutable. His hair was coiffed and he’d come dressed a bit nattier than the rest of the chancers and gamesters surrounding him.

  His eyes flickered in Dan’s direction. Dan caught the glance. Was it just curiosity about a new player or was his gaydar ticking? No, there it was again. A kindred soul had sent him a glance, ferreting him out. Where a straight man might look at you once in curiosity, a second time in contempt, a gay man would keep coming back for more till he could be sure.

  Nimble fingers turned the cards as hand followed hand. One of the men flexed his fingers, knuckles cracking like a gunshot in the tiny space. Four pairs of eyes glanced around nervously for a millisecond, then moved on.

  They played for an hour. Not a word was spoken; nothing existed outside the game. Dan was down $480 when someone called for a break. These guys were good, way out of his league. He stood and went to the bathroom, splashing his face with water and smoothing his hair as he stared in the mirror. When he came out, the anchor stood in the hallway.

  “Walter Temple,” Dan said, holding out a hand.

  “Good to meet you, Walter. I’m Jack Dawson.”

  They shook.

  “I see you like to play anchor.”

  Jack shrugged. “I’m a bit of a lightweight here. The others know it, but that doesn’t stop them taking my money.” He laughed. “Still, it makes me feel secure to be the last bidder, so I play anchor when I can.”

  “Makes sense.”

  Jack gave him an appraising look. “Haven’t seen you here before, have I?”

  “No. Good eye. I’m a friend of Tony Moran’s.”

  Jack held his gaze. Dan sensed his puzzlement before he remembered that Tony’s name had been splashed all over the news yesterday.

  “Is he … I mean, did they find him?” Jack asked.

  “Sorry?”

  “Tony. Isn’t he missing?”

  Dan gave him a blank look worthy of one of poker’s best. “Really? I hadn’t heard. I actually haven’t seen him for a while.”

  Jack nodded eagerly. “I haven’t either. Maybe he’s back. Tell you the truth, I was worried about him. The last time I saw him he lost nearly twenty thousand dollars in one night.”

  Dan whistled. “I didn’t know he had that kind of money. Way out
of my league.”

  “Mine, too.” Jack shook his head. “Not just that. He was betting erratically. It was almost like he wanted to lose it. I told him he might want to seek help. He shrugged it off.”

  “Was he angry that you said that?”

  Jack shook his head. “Nah. You know Tony — he never loses his cool.”

  “Right. So there’s no betting limit?”

  “Not on Friday nights. It’s banque ouverte.”

  Sky’s the limit. Dan had seen the sickened looks on the faces of players when confronted with an astronomical bid from a cagey opponent. Good bluff or a confident hand? Who could tell? Open bids were a freefall waiting to happen. Not the paltry odds of the legit gaming tables, but the edge of an abyss that threatened to swallow a gambler whole. A pulse-quickening dare for high rollers, but not for the faint of heart or the empty pocketed.

  “I know the stakes have to be high enough to keep the game interesting, but …” Jack shook his head. “Tony made a lot of people nervous that night. They asked him not to come around for a while. It upsets the other players to see that sort of recklessness. You start to think it’s mafia money being tossed around. Next thing you know, someone will be breaking down the door and scattering gunshot at the rest of us.”

  “I always limit my bets,” Dan said.

  A restless look came over Jack’s face. “You were down four-eighty, wasn’t it?” A man with numbers in his blood. He probably dreamed in hearts and spades.

  “Something like that.” Dan shrugged. “What about you?”

  Jack’s mouth stitched a nervous smile. “I was up about seven-fifty at nine this morning, but now I’m down nearly eight hundred.”

  “At nine? What time did you get here?”

  “Oh, I’ve been here since last night.”

  “Maybe it’s time to cash in,” Dan suggested.

  A bell tinkled somewhere behind them.

  “Not yet.” There was an electric gleam in Jack’s eye. Chairs scraped in the other room as the players returned to their seats. Jack twitched like something skewered on a stick. “I’ve got to get back in there. Coming?”