House Odds (14 page)

Mahoney hated Atlantic City.

He was wearing a red windbreaker over an old Patriots sweatshirt, navy-blue chinos, and tennis shoes. On his big head was a Red Sox baseball cap, the bill pulled down, partially obscuring his face. It was the sort of outfit he wore when Congress wasn’t in session and he was home in Boston, walking around the Back Bay, stopping in neighborhood places for a beer or two. He liked the Back Bay, particularly in the fall, when the weather was crisp and the trees had some color and you could see Harvard’s crew team sculling on the Charles.

He missed Boston, especially today.

The Atlantic Palace Casino was bigger than the pyramid at Giza and flashier than a New York pimp. As Mahoney walked through it, he glanced at the players hunched over their cards at the blackjack tables. Whenever they showed casinos in television commercials, all the players were young and beautiful, laughing and grinning like they were having the time of their lives. Some of the folks he could see were young, but gray-haired pensioners bused in from New York and Philly far outnumbered the youngsters, and none of them, old or young, were particularly beautiful. More to the point, none of them looked happy; they sat there—grim, tense, humorless expressions on their faces—just hoping—just
praying
—that they wouldn’t bust on the next card they were dealt. Yeah, gambling was a lot of fun.

Mahoney presented himself at the security desk and said he had an appointment with Ted Allen. Mahoney could tell the guard thought it pretty unlikely that someone dressed like Mahoney would have an appointment with the man who ran the casino, but he politely asked Mahoney’s name.

“Just say it’s Molly’s dad,” Mahoney said.

Mahoney wasn’t surprised that the security guard didn’t recognize him, and that had little to do with his half-assed disguise. Although he’d been on the political stage for decades—posing with presidents at news conferences, making guest appearances on TV shows, not to mention having been the Speaker of the House for more years than he could remember—he knew that half the people in the country didn’t pay enough attention to national politics to recognize him. Hell, half the people in the country didn’t even bother to vote.

Five minutes later Mahoney was ushered into a penthouse office. Through the windows he could see the ocean to the east, but not the ugly low-rent district to the west. He figured he might be high enough to see England on a clear day.

Ted Allen turned out to be a pretty-boy with reddish blond hair and chiseled features, and he introduced himself as the CEO of Indigo Gaming, Inc. Mahoney had a hard time believing that anyone would make this arrogant young squirt the chief of anything.

“Would you like a drink, sir?” Ted asked.

“No,” Mahoney said. He wanted a drink—actually he
needed
a drink—but he wasn’t going to drink with this guy. “What I want is to hear what you have to say about my daughter, and I wanna hear it quick.”

“Okay,” Ted said. He paused a beat, then said, “Molly owes me—the casino, that is—one hundred and nine thousand dollars for gambling losses.”

Mahoney didn’t say anything; Preston Whitman had already told him this.

“She likes to play craps,” Ted said. “Not usually a woman’s game, but . . .” Ted made a gesture indicating to-each-her-own-poison. “She’s been a regular here for about a year, a good customer, so when she came to me one day and asked me to extend her some credit, and considering who her father was, I decided to accommodate her. In retrospect, not one of my wiser decisions.”

Bullshit, Mahoney thought. She didn’t come to him; he went to her. He saw she was losing and running out of money, and he offered Eve the apple. And he did it
because
of who Mahoney was. Like most people, Ted Allen figured Mahoney was wealthy—which, at the moment, he wasn’t. Ted had thought that Mahoney would pay off his daughter’s debt to avoid the embarrassment, which he probably would have, scraping up the money somehow, if he had known about her problem.

“A hundred thousand’s a fairly large number,” Ted said, “but not an insurmountable one. Unfortunately, Molly has significantly compounded her problem.”

“And how did she do that?” Mahoney said. He just wanted to
smack
this guy.

“When she said she couldn’t pay the hundred she owed, I said I was going to have to discuss the situation with you, and that’s when she came to me with a proposal.”

“A proposal?”

“Yes. She told me she had information on a particular stock—a stock for some company that makes batteries—and that if I would loan her just a bit more, I’d get back all she owed.”

Oh, Jesus.

“Molly’s an intelligent, educated woman,” Ted said, “and she made a very effective presentation. She had charts, historical performance data. That sort of thing.” He glanced over at the university diplomas on his wall, letting Mahoney know that he was a man who could appreciate a well-reasoned business proposition. “She was very persuasive and I was quite impressed.

“Molly figured the stock’s price would rise anywhere from twenty to thirty percent. That’s quite a bump. So I loaned her two hundred and fifty thousand so she could invest it and pay down her debt, and gave her another two fifty to invest for the casino. Twenty percent on two hundred and fifty grand would not be a bad day’s work.”

“You’re saying that you knowingly abetted my daughter in an illegal insider trading scheme.”

Ted gave a little shrug. “I’m not a lawyer, Mr. Mahoney. I didn’t know that your daughter was doing anything illegal.”

“Bullshit,” Mahoney said. He was also thinking that if Molly’s scheme had worked, Ted would have used her over and over again in the future to do the same thing. He would have had his hooks into her for life.

“Be that as it may,” Ted said. “Right now I have a problem: my half million dollars has been frozen by the government—and I want it back.”

“Tough shit,” Mahoney said. He also noticed that Ted hadn’t said anything about consolidating Molly’s debts and giving her a low interest loan, as Preston Whitman had said he would.

“The other problem I have,” Ted said as if Mahoney had spoken, “is that someplace down the line Molly may think it’s a good idea to implicate me in this crime for which she’s been arrested. And that’s why I thought we should have this little chat. To make sure that Molly—and you—understand that if she was to do such a thing it could have some very grave consequences. For one thing, Molly’s gambling problem would become public knowledge, but that would be the least of her problems.”

“Are you threatening my . . .”

“You see, Mr. Mahoney, there’s no way to prove that I gave her the money. The money was direct-deposited to her account by a late associate of mine and there’s no banking trail leading to him, much less to me. But . . . well, I think my next point would be best illustrated by a small demonstration.”

“A demonstration?” Mahoney said. What the hell was this guy gonna do? Show him PowerPoint slides?

Ted hit a button on his phone and said into the speaker, “Tell Gus to bring Mr. Reed in.”

A moment later two men entered Ted’s office. One was a wide-shouldered thug in a bad-fitting suit wearing white cowboy boots. The other guy was in his fifties and scrawny-looking, particularly standing next to the other guy. The scrawny one looked scared to death.

“This is Denny Reed,” Ted said to Mahoney. “The one that looks like he’s about to puke all over my rug. If Denny pukes, Gus, I want you to rub his nose in it.”

The thug just popped the bubble gum he was chewing; it sounded like a rifle shot going off in the room.

“Now then, Denny,” Ted said, “did you deposit five hundred thousand dollars into Molly Mahoney’s bank account?”

Reed hesitated for a second then said, “Yes.”

Reed’s voice was kinda froggy, Mahoney noted, like there was something wrong with his throat. Or maybe it was fear that caused him to croak.

“And are you willing, Denny,” Ted said, “to admit that you put this money into her account without her knowledge and that you then used the money to buy a certain stock.”

“Yes,” Reed said.

“And are you willing to testify that Molly had nothing to do with this illegal transaction, that some person who you are unwilling to name, gave you the stock tip?”

“Yes,” Reed said.

“Very good, Denny,” Ted said. “But now let me ask you this: are you also willing to admit that Molly was the one who told you about the stock and that you and she conspired together to buy it?”

“Yes,” Reed said.

“Wonderful, Denny. You gave the right answer every time. Gus, why don’t you take Denny back to his room.”

After the two men left his office, Ted said, “Did you get the point of that demonstration, Congressman?”

Mahoney nodded. “Yeah, I got the point. Denny will say whatever you tell him to say.”

“That’s right. Denny, who has a criminal record by the way, is willing to do the time for your daughter’s crime all by himself or he’s willing to testify that your daughter was his accomplice. In one scenario, your daughter avoids a jail sentence and in the other, she and Denny both go to jail, but Denny gets a reduced sentence for giving up Molly, she being who she is.”

“So what do you want?”

“The first thing I want is my half million back, plus the money Molly owes the casino. That’s a total of six hundred grand. The second thing I want is for the U.S. government to provide a hundred million dollars for a certain construction project here in Atlantic City.”

“A construction project? What in the hell are you talking about?” Mahoney said.

Ted explained about the new convention center, and how the acting governor of New Jersey was being a prick by insisting on supplemental federal funding.

“As I understand it from talking to Preston Whitman,” Ted said, “all you have to do is attach the funding as a rider to some bill, something Preston says you can do if you set your mind to it.”

Mahoney didn’t say anything for several seconds. He felt like throwing Ted through the window and watching his brains splatter all over the boardwalk. But he didn’t. Instead he rose from the chair where he’d been sitting and said, “I’m gonna need a little time to think this over.”

“I’m afraid that won’t do, sir. I need an answer. Right now,” Ted said.

“Okay, then I’ll give you one,” Mahoney said. “Kiss my ass.”

* * *

Mahoney needed a drink, but he wasn’t going to drink in Ted’s casino, so he left the Atlantic Palace and walked over to the next casino on the boardwalk, which meant he had to walk about half a mile.

It was only eleven a.m. and the casino wasn’t all that full, but the slot machines were still making their nerve-jangling, god-awful racket. He found a lounge that had a stage in the middle, a place where they probably had some kind of free show at night, but at this time of day the stage was dark. There were only two people in the lounge, a man and a woman sitting at separate tables, and they both looked as if they’d been up gambling all night—and lost. They were staring down into their drinks, the looks on their faces saying that they’d lost more than they could afford and had no idea what they were going to do. Goddamn idiot gambling junkies—and it appeared that his daughter was one of them. He could just imagine Molly sitting here at some earlier date, looking just like these two losers.

Mahoney ordered bourbon from the bartender and took a seat at a table the size of a Frisbee. He wasn’t worried about having walked out on Ted; Ted wasn’t going to do anything immediately. No, he’d give Mahoney a day or two to think things over and either contact him again or have Preston Whitman do it. The problem was, he didn’t have any idea what he was going to do.

But Molly was screwed if he didn’t do something. She would either go to jail for a crime which he now knew she’d committed or he had to pay Ted Allen six hundred thousand dollars—six hundred thousand that he didn’t have. Plus there were Molly’s legal expenses, which would be at least another hundred grand. Finally, as if he didn’t have enough on his plate, he also had to get a law passed that would give the state of New Jersey a hundred million bucks. Oddly enough, the hundred million was the least of his many problems.

A hundred million dollars sounds like a lot of money, but in terms of federal spending it’s a drop in the bucket. Or maybe half a drop. Getting that amount tacked onto some bill was something he thought he might be able to do, but to get his hands on seven hundred grand . . .

But there was something else going on here. It was obvious that Ted had some scheme where he thought he could make a ton of money if this convention center was built, and six hundred thousand dollars had to be pocket change for an operation the size of the Atlantic Palace. The casino could lose that much in a single night if some whale got lucky at the tables. Yeah, Ted should have been willing to simply
give
Mahoney the money in trade for his influence. So why didn’t he? Ted Allen might just be a greedy prick, but Mahoney didn’t think that was it. No, there was something else going on, something he was missing.

There was one thing he wasn’t missing, though: Ted was connected. At least he thought he was. He had a white-bread name and diplomas on the wall, and he didn’t say “youse guys” or “fuckin’ this” and “fuckin’ that” in every other sentence, but no doubt about it, Ted was Mob. Mahoney thought at first that Ted was just a crooked businessman who had tried to make a fast buck in the market, but when that palooka Gus hauled that pathetic bastard Denny Reed into the room . . . Well, that’s when Ted had shown his spots. It was obvious Ted had told Denny that if he didn’t agree to do the time for Molly he was going end up with a thousand feet of Atlantic Ocean over his head.