The corporate accountants now running Las Vegas didn’t much care for the old-school Chicago guys, but the sports book was the one part of a casino that couldn’t be managed by numbers alone. To maximize profit, you needed a deep and practical understanding of both gambling psychology and the dynamics of group behavior. And you needed a reliable network of informants to let you know when the fix was in, who was hiding an injury, and the sordid personal troubles of various athletes.
Each year more than three billion dollars was wagered in Las Vegas sports books, and the books held onto 4.5 percent of it. If your hold dropped below 4 percent, you found yourself looking for a new career. If it hit 5 percent, you were a superstar. William Lamech’s sports book was one of the largest in town, with more than thirty massive screens on the wall and plush seating with personal monitors at each station. And Lamech’s book averaged a 5.6 percent hold. He was the best there was, and the corporate accountants just had to shut the hell up and kiss his ring. Much had changed in the Nevada desert, but gambling was still gambling and money was still money, and William Lamech had faced all comers for fifty-three years and hadn’t lost a fight yet.
Whoever was behind this strange new threat had miscalculated, Lamech told himself. And whatever leverage they thought they had, it wouldn’t be enough. He was a tough old bastard; if they forced him to prove it, he would prove it.
“Well I think it’s bullshit,” said Michael Passarelli. “I don’t believe it for a second.”
“I don’t buy it either,” said Jared Case. “It must’ve been recorded after the game.”
“A new variation on past-posting,” added Pete DeFazio. Heads nodded around the boardroom table as the others murmured their agreement.
William Lamech knew that the hardest part would be getting them to believe it. Nobody rises to the top of a sports book by being a pigeon, and these were twelve of the sharpest and most skeptical minds in the gambling business. Before playing the DVD and the decoded backward audio, he’d warned them it would seem incredible.
“It’s not past-posting,” said Lamech, “I had the broadcast dates verified independently. He’s actually predicting the outcomes. And he’s always right.” He paused to let it sink in. “I know how you feel—I couldn’t believe it either, at first. And I still don’t know how he’s doing it. But he
DeFazio whistled through his teeth. “Goddamn,” he said. “Where’d you get this?”
“Couple days ago, one of my bookies in Atlanta. Customer of his—some kid, audio engineer with a gambling problem—stumbled on it, brought it to the bookie, hoping to settle his debt with it. He didn’t believe the kid, naturally, but the kid played the tapes for him, and he was smart enough to call me in on it. It checked out.”
“What’s Trinity’s game?” said Darwyn Jones from the other end of the table. Next to Lamech, Jones was the smartest man in the room. Maybe just as smart. “You think it’s a shakedown?”
“He hasn’t contacted us,” said Lamech.
“Who’s backing him?” asked Passarelli.
“We don’t know,” said Lamech.
“Well, that’s just great.”
“Goddamn,” repeated DeFazio. “We can’t just wait. I mean, he predicted the fuckin’
Jared Case broke the silence. “It woulda killed us. Our margins are tight enough in this economy.”
“We need to act now,” said DeFazio.
“Act how, exactly?” said Sam Babcock.
“I think,” said Darwyn Jones, “that William has an idea.” All eyes shifted to Lamech.
“I do.” Lamech sipped some Perrier; made them all wait for it. “We’re in the information business, gentlemen. So let’s get some. The preacher must have his own sins, everyone does. Let’s find out what they are, and see what leverage that gives us with Trinity.”
“I like it,” said Darwyn Jones.
Once again, heads began to nod around the table.
“You think the preacher will play ball?” said Case.
“I don’t know the man, and I don’t know what leverage we’ll find. But one way or another I think I can convince him it would be better to work with us than against us.”
“And if he refuses?”
“If he refuses…we’ll jump off that bridge when we get to it.” Lamech gave the men a reassuring smile. “But one way or another, we
It was starting again. Tim Trinity felt it bearing down on him, like the dull ache before a heavy rain, pressure building inside his head, scrambling his thoughts, blurring his focus. Then the voices, quiet at first, but growing steadily louder and more critical. It always started like this, and he knew the tongues would be on him if he didn’t take action soon.
How long since he’d called his connection? He checked his watch. Ten minutes. How long did he say it would take? Half an hour. OK, another twenty minutes to wait. He could hold off the tongues another twenty minutes, couldn’t he?
He did, barely. Pacing furious circles around the living room of his Buckhead mansion, sweating profusely, peeking out between the front curtains every minute or two. By the time his dealer arrived, he was twitching and starting to babble. But he got the transaction done fast, and the dealer didn’t stay for conversation.
Trinity’s movements were becoming spastic, but he managed his way into the den, got the small Ziploc baggie open, and poured two parallel white lines onto the coffee table. He rolled a twenty-dollar bill into a straw and shoved it into his left nostril. Snorted the first line and was immediately rewarded with an icy explosion of cocaine clarity, coating the inside of his skull from front to back.
The voices faded away.
The pressure dissipated.
His head cleared.
He switched to his right nostril and snorted the second line.
But no. The cocaine was medicinal, not recreational. And New Orleans was the past. It wouldn’t be the same anyway, even if he could go back.
Not after that bitch, Katrina.
When the voices began, in the aftermath of the hurricane, Trinity put it down to a delayed stress reaction. It seemed everyone who stayed through the storm was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Why should he be immune? Cops and firefighters and doctors and nurses stayed because they were required to stay. The infirm also stayed, some abandoned in their homes or at the entrance of overcrowded hospitals, others attended by loved ones who couldn’t bear to leave them behind. And then there were those simply too stupid, too crazy, too lazy, too stoned, or too poor to leave.
Trinity fell into another category. Too greedy. He’d stayed for Andrew in ’92, and it earned him a lot of
