Paul Levine - Paydirt

"Mr. Commissioner!" Bobby blurted out, realizing at once he was too loud. He sidestepped a stone urn and closed the distance in two steps with Christine following. "There's something you've got to know about the Super Bowl."

Constantine laughed and shot glances at his two companions. "And I thought I already knew it all."

"You don't! It's being tampered with. Gamblers are involved. Mobsters are extorting Skarcynski."

"Calm down, Bobby," Christine whispered into his ear. "Go slowly."

"How's that?" Constantine appeared alarmed. "Who are you?"

"A crackpot!" It was Martin Kingsley, in a black sharkskin suit and black boots, breaking into the circle. "I apologize, Pete. This is my ex-son-in-law. He's a disbarred lawyer with severe emotional problems."

"Kingsley's involved!" Bobby shouted, gesticulating wildly at the team owner. "He's got a five million dollar bet on the game. He's probably in on the extortion plot.. He'd do anything to win."

"I remember you now," the Commissioner said, appraising Bobby as one would a lizard on the bathroom tile. "You're the fellow who cracked up and went on television a couple of years ago."

"He didn't crack up," Christine said, elbowing her way in front of Bobby, as if to shield him from harm. "He did what was right."

Kingsley's face reddened. "You'll have to forgive my daughter, Pete. Love is blind, as they say."

Kingsley took Christine by the arm and tried to lead her away.

"Don't touch her!" Bobby warned, moving toward Kingsley,

Suddenly, Bobby felt a hand gripping his shoulder. "Is there a problem here?" It was Mr. Crew Cut, or Tarzan, or whatever his name was, Kingsley's security thug who had boxed his ears. The guy had hands the size of hubcaps. He was dragging Bobby one way, while Kingsley was hauling Christine the other.

"Daddy, let go!" she pleaded.

"This is for your own good, darling."

"Bobby!" Christine called out to him, but now a second man had a grip on Bobby's other arm, and he was being hustled behind the caterers' tent that backed up to the seawall running along the bay. Suddenly, they were in darkness, the tent blocking out the lights from the party, the water dark and forbidding behind them.

"Hello asshole," the second man said, his voice hissing like water dousing a fire.

"I owe you some pain. Big time."

Bobby couldn't make out his face, but he recognized the voice. The angry, ugly voice of Dino Fornecchio.

In her thirty-seven years on earth-thirty-eight as of next Thursday, Christine had never yelled at her father. No teenage tantrums, no adolescent alienation. The perfect child for the loving father.

Now, standing among his heavy-hitting brethren, the fraternity of wealthy team owners, she leapt at him, beating his chest with both her fists. "Where is he!" she screamed. "What have you done with Bobby?"

Kingsley backed up but she stuck to him like a burr to a horse's mane. Absorbing the blows as she continued to strike him, the blood seemed to drain from his face, and his eyes grew wide. "Calm down! You're hysterical. I've never seen you like this."

"Damn you! Where's Bobby?"

Conversation around them stopped, and hundreds of startled faces stared. Christine didn't care. Her heart was drumming like the wings of a bird. She pushed him with both hands to his chest, and he continued retreating until they were off the limestone terrace and in the shadows of a row of statues. In a moment, she had him pinned to the towering figure of Minerva, a marble goddess of wisdom.

"You've lied to me, Daddy! I know all about your bet with Bobby. I know everything."

"You don't know the half of it."

"What does that mean? What else have you done?"

"It's all been for you," he said. "I've brought Robert Gallagher to his knees for you and Scott. How do you think he got into this mess?"

"He told me all about it. He lost a big bet to a gambler named LaBarca."

"It was me! LaBarca was my beard. I dug a hole for that shyster ex-husband of yours, and he jumped right in. Now, I'm here to turn the last spadeful of dirt."

"No, no," she said, crying. "How could you?"

"I'm proud of what I've done for my family. I'd do it again. That man has caused us nothing but trouble."

"I love him. Scott loves him."

"Listen to me, Christine. He's not the one for you. He doesn't have what it takes."

"I've listened to you!" she wailed. "All these years, I've done everything you wanted. I've tried to please you. God, what I've done! What I've given up! Not only did I sacrifice my husband, I've given you my son!"

"You did the right thing, but now that bastard has misled you. He's mixed you up. I'll take care of you, and I'll take care of Scott."

He tried to put his arms around her, but she swatted him away. "No! I'll take care of myself, and Bobby and I will raise Scott."

"I won't let you do that, and neither will the judge."

"What are you going to do? Sue me?" The anger boiled up inside her like soup in an iron kettle.

"I'll do what I've always done," he said, his eyes a steely blue. "Whatever it takes. If you're consorting with that felon, if you're behaving irrationally, then maybe you should go away for a rest somewhere. Get some treatment. I'm sure the judge would see it my way."

"What are you talking about?"

"Custody of Scott. I've had Jailbreak look into it. When both natural parents are unfit, a grandparent is the next logical custodian."

"You'd do it, wouldn't you?" Tears ran down her cheeks like two flowing brooks, all the strength seemed to seep out of her bones. The hurt pierced her heart. Her father had been everything to her. That he could turn on her, that he could threaten to take Scott was unthinkable.

He looked at her now with a triumphant glare. She'd seen he same look in business deals when her father had the upper hand, when he was about to squash his opponent like an insect under the heel of his boot. This was just another deal, another game to be won. She had become the enemy, another foe to vanquish.

"Bobby was wrong about you," she said, walking away. "You're an even bigger bastard than he knows."

Bobby's ankles were banging off the rough steps of the stone bridge as he was dragged along the seawall behind the mansion. Crew Cut had him under one arm, Dino Fornecchio under the other. After crossing the bridge, they went up a second set up steps and into a stone gazebo at the water's edge. A sliver of moon rose over Biscayne Bay, lighting a path across the dark water straight to the seawall.

"Stop here," Fornecchio said, and they both released their grips.

"Now what the fuck am I going to do with you?" Fornecchio asked. A white bandage was taped across the bridge of his nose, and his voice had a heavy adenoidal twang. He pulled a handgun from a holster inside his suit coat and waved it in Bobby's face. "I never killed anybody in such a scenic place before."

"That would be smart, Dino," Bobby said, struggling to stay calm. "Why not dump my body in the VIP room when they're having their Key lime pie? I'm the guy who just told the Commissioner the game is fixed by gamblers and that Kingsley's involved, and the last two guys I'm seen with work for Kingsley and the biggest gambler in town. Why not take an ad in the Herald saying who killed me?"

That seemed to stop Fornecchio a moment, and Bobby frantically tried to think his way out of the jam. He fought to control his panic, resisting the urge to run like a rabbit in front of the dogs, wondering if Fornecchio would put a bullet in his back. He tried to focus on his surroundings, to plan a path of escape. In the distance, a yacht chugged across the bay, and water slip-slopped against the seawall from its wake. Here he was, on the verge of death, and the rest of the world continued at its own pace, oblivious to his and a million other tragedies.