Philip Kerr - The Shot

Sylvia was shaking her head. There were tears in her eyes.

‘You’re young,’ he said. ‘You still believe in shit. In morals. In an ideal. Zionism. Marxism. Capitalism. Whatever. You think that stuff’s any less corrosive to society than what I do for a living? Let me tell you, it’s not the people who believe in nothing you gotta worry about, it’s the people who believe in stuff. Religious people. Political people. Idealists. Converts. They’re the ones who are going to destroy this world. Not people like me, the people who pay lip service to no creed or cause. Money’s the only cause that will never let you down and self-interest’s the one world philosophy that won’t try to bullshit you. There’s a dialectic for you that’ll always make sense.’

Tom smiled and shifted the golf bag on to his other shoulder. There were times when he almost convinced himself with his own bullshit. And if that wasn’t politics then he was the man in the Hathaway shirt.

‘Now let’s get the hell out of here before someone smells our gunpowder.’

It was a hot and humid Friday evening in September when Tom Jefferson left his Biscayne bayfront home in Miami Shores and drove twenty minutes southwest, to the jai alai frontón on 37th Avenue and North West 35th Street. The ancient Basque sport of jai alai, though popular in Spain and France, was played nowhere in North America except Florida, reflecting the sunshine state’s uniquely heterogeneous character. It had been two Cubans who built America’s first frontón in the shadow of Hialeah, the grande dame of Florida racetracks, back in 1928. This edifice lasted only as long as the great hurricane of 1935. Subsequently, another frontón was built just a short way south of the original, right next to Miami International Airport and, until 1953, when an enthusiastic aficionado from Chicago erected a second frontón in Dania, the one on 37th held a monopoly on the game.

Tom followed jai alai the same way he followed baseball and football, which is to say he rarely got a chance to go, but paid close attention to the results published in the Miami Herald . Besides, tickets were hard to come by. Played indoors, the seating capacity of the frontón on 37th was just three thousand five hundred. Hugely popular among the city’s Latin population, especially at the weekend, the promoters could have sold two or three times as many tickets. But for the ticket he had received in the mail, Tom, who was part Cuban himself, would never have dreamed of actually going to the Friday night jai alai. Let alone going there to discuss a contract. People who wanted other people killed nearly always preferred to meet somewhere quieter, where there was less chance of being overheard. Which meant that the mysterious Mr Ralston, who had sent Tom his ticket, was either a rank amateur in the business of killing and hence someone to be avoided, or someone so sophisticated in the purifying euphemisms of the trade that he felt comfortable talking contracts in a crowd.

The game listed was an eleven-game doubles for seven points, with all sixteen pelotaris who were in action coming from as far away as Cuba, Mexico, and Spain’s Basque region. Tom never minded making a small bet on jai alai: the number of players involved meant that the game was hard to fix. So upon entering the frontón , and glancing over the players, he purchased a five-dollar quiniela exacta from one of the pari-mutuel , state-run betting machines. To collect on this ticket meant that it was necessary not only to have picked the winning pair, but also the runners-up.

When it was approaching a quarter to seven, Tom went to find his seat. This was a good one, the best Tom had ever had — right in front, next to the protective glass wall. But of his host there was, as yet, no sign. Just after seven, the four pelotaris already warming up on court, a man carrying a copy of the New York Times and a paperback novel sat down beside him.

‘I’m John Ralston,’ he said, shaking Tom by the hand. ‘Nice to meet you. And thanks for coming.’

It was a strong handshake, stronger than the man’s business-like, not to say dapper appearance might have indicated. He wore heavy-framed dark glasses, a cream shirt and tie, a well-cut beige linen suit, a folded silk handkerchief in the breast pocket, more than a hint of cologne, and a large ruby ring. The silver hair above Ralston’s high, tanned forehead was a little longer than was fashionable, but neat, and from time to time he touched it as if it had been recently cut. Straight away Tom decided that the man was no amateur: Ralston was not in the least bit fearful of Tom.

‘Thanks for asking me,’ said Tom.

‘Have you made a bet?’ Ralston was as well spoken as he was groomed. His accent was hard to place, too, a curious mixture of Boston and West Coast.

‘A quiniela exacta on the green shirts to win,’ said Tom. ‘The two Cubans are in form. And the orchid shirts to come second.’ He watched Ralston study the programme for a moment or two and guessed him to be in his mid-fifties.

‘You sound as if you know this game.’

‘I follow it in the newspapers.’

‘I’ve only recently started coming,’ admitted Ralston. ‘Since I’ve been in Florida. Originally I’m from Chicago, but most of my business has been in Hollywood and Las Vegas. Pedro Mir. The matchmaker? He’s a friend of mine. I’ve been telling him that he ought to open a frontón in L.A.. Or in Vegas, maybe. With all the Mexicans living there, I think this game would go pretty well. What do you think, Mister Jefferson?’

‘I don’t know L.A. very well.’

‘What’s to know?’ smiled Ralston. ‘Raymond Chandler once said L.A. has all the personality of a paper-cup. But to be fair it was Bay City he really hated. Are you much of a reader, Mister Jefferson?’

‘I read pretty much anything,’ said Tom, noting the title and the author of the paperback lying on Ralston’s lap. Island in the Sun , by Alec Waugh, was one book he thought he would probably never read.

‘I knew Chandler when he was working at Paramount Pictures. That would have been around nineteen forty-three. Chandler and a few others besides. Lately, I’ve been in the fruit business. In Central America. But in those days I was in movies. Producing some, but mainly on the money side.’

‘I hear that’s the best side to be on,’ offered Tom.

The game was starting. Played on a three-walled court approximately 180 feet long, the pelotaris used a curved wicker basket called a cesta , strapped to the hand, to hurl the pelota which, made of solid rubber and twice the size of a golf-ball, was covered in kidskin. Pelotas travelling at speeds of up to 170 miles per hour were caught in the air, on one bounce, or off the back wall before being returned to the front. Jai alai was a game that demanded power, stamina, and an instinctive ability to cover the best positions on a court longer than the width of a football field.

Ralston lowered his voice. ‘Mostly I’ve been involved in the gaming business,’ he said. ‘Not the pari-mutuel kind, you understand. Although I can’t ever see how some sports are blessed with the gambling seal of purity while others are not.’

‘A dog, or a horse, or for that matter a pelotari is harder to fix than a game of keno,’ observed Tom.

‘That’s what most people think, it’s true. But it’s not why the casino business was throttled here in Florida. The real reason is that the casino threatened the Florida state’s profits from the mutuel machines. Not that I give much of a fuck any more. This is all ancient history as far as I’m concerned.’