House Odds (12 page)

“Sir,” Whitman said, “I represent a number of people in the gaming industry and . . .”

“The gaming industry? You mean
gambling
.”

“It’s not just gambling, sir. Gambling’s a small part of it. The gaming industry is about entertainment, lodging, restaurants, retail stores. They provide jobs—union jobs—for thousands of people.”

“Goddamnit. What the hell does this have to do with my daughter?”

Whitman grimaced and shook his head, as if something pained him deeply. “Congressman, your daughter owes one of my clients, the Atlantic Palace Casino in Atlantic City, over one hundred thousand dollars.”

Mahoney had played political poker all his life and his face remained expressionless—but he felt like throwing up.

“In addition to the hundred thousand Molly owes my client, she also has an additional one hundred thousand dollars in credit card debt. I would assume the SEC knows about her credit card situation, but her obligation to the casino is not known to anyone but my client and myself.”

“Let’s just cut to the chase here,” Mahoney said. “What the hell do you want?”

“My client wants to find some way to work this out, sir.”

“What’s to work out? If my daughter owes someone money, she’ll pay it back.”

“Well, in case she can’t do that, my client feels he may be able to help in that regard,” Whitman said.

“Oh, yeah,” Mahoney said. “How’s that?”

“He was thinking he might be able to, uh, consolidate her debt—pay off the credit card companies for her then give her a very generous interest rate.”

“How generous?”

“Two percent.”

“Just two,” Mahoney said, making no attempt to hide his skepticism.

“Yes, sir. Which is certainly better than the eighteen or twenty percent that credit card companies charge. Furthermore, my client might be willing to defer payment on the debt for some period, say three months, if that would help. So how does that sound to you, sir?”

“Why that sounds just peachy, Whitman. Now get to the part about what I have to do to make all this happen.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir. My client is insisting on a meeting with you. He feels it would be best that there be no middle man—meaning myself—involved in all this. And I think he’s right. We all want to do what’s best to protect Molly’s privacy.”

“Is that some kind of threat?” Mahoney said, then realizing he was speaking too loudly, lowered his voice. “Are you saying that if I don’t meet with this guy you’ll talk to the press?”

The media coverage for Molly’s arrest had actually been fairly quiet. She made the news, both print and television, the day she was arraigned—photos included, of course—and there were follow-up stories the next day, but after that the media turned to other more entertaining matters. Fortunately, at least for Molly, the day after her arrest another Hollywood star managed to ingest enough cocaine to kill himself and the president’s wife made a comment about slave labor at a state dinner that had the Chinese all fired up. But if Molly’s gambling problems became known, the newsies would swing back into action and for his sake, as well as his daughter’s, Mahoney didn’t want that.

“Of course not, sir,” Whitman said. “I would never talk to media about something that affects a member of your family.”

The hell you wouldn’t, you oily-mouthed prick,
but Mahoney didn’t say that. He drained his drink and crunched down on the ice cubes in his glass. He pretended he was crunching down on Preston Whitman’s bones. Finally, he spoke.

“I’m gonna pass. I can handle a couple hundred thousand, so I don’t need the loan or a meeting with your client. And if the media finds out about my daughter’s gambling, so be it. But if they do, life for you in this town will become hell on earth, Whitman. You won’t be able to get access to a janitor in the Capitol, much less a politician.”

Mahoney rose to leave, acting as if he didn’t have a worry in the world. But he’d actually lied to Whitman. In his current financial situation, coming up with two hundred grand might not be that easy.

“Uh, Congressman,” Whitman said. “I’m afraid Molly’s problem is bigger than two hundred thousand dollars. Much bigger.”

Mahoney sat back down.

Jesus, Molly, what have you done
?

16

When Alice walked into the restaurant, DeMarco was so shocked his mouth dropped open.

Alice was a short, big-busted woman who was pushing fifty, and the last time DeMarco had seen her, her hair was dyed platinum blonde and she probably weighed a hundred and sixty pounds. The woman walking toward his table had honey-colored hair that perfectly framed her narrow face and she weighed, maybe, a hundred and twenty pounds. And there was something different about her face—her jaw was firmer, or something.

“Wow!” DeMarco said when she sat down. “You look great.”

“Divorce will do that to you,” Alice said, obviously pleased by DeMarco’s reaction. “After twenty-two years, I finally divorced the asshole, got a face-lift, and joined Weight Watchers and a gym. I also got a boyfriend, this cute little Nicaraguan guy who lives down the block. I think he just wants to marry me so he can become a citizen but I don’t care. He’s a tiger in bed.”

DeMarco winced when he heard this. He didn’t want to hear about Alice’s sex life.

“What about you, DeMarco? Are you married yet?”

“No.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Not at the moment. I was going with this woman who worked for the CIA but she got transferred to Afghanistan. Actually, she asked to be transferred to Afghanistan.”

“Why? Were you cheating on her?”

“No. She just . . . No, I wasn’t cheating on her.”

Alice shook her head. “How many serious girlfriends have you had since I’ve known you, since your divorce?”

DeMarco had to think about that. “Three,” he said.

“Three—and you’re still single. What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s
wrong
with me.”

“Well, something must be wrong. You need a wife, DeMarco. You’re the kind of man who needs . . . You need
direction
.”

“I don’t need . . . Never mind. Did you get what I asked for?”

Alice, in addition to providing unwanted counseling regarding DeMarco’s personal life, worked for a telephone company. He’d met her on one of the first assignments Mahoney gave him, but since he’d met Neil through Emma, he now rarely called to ask for her help. And she helped him, of course, because he paid her—and because she liked him in a pushy, aggravating, big sister way.

“Yeah,” Alice said.

DeMarco wanted to know if Campbell had called anyone after he visited him last night—and Alice with her job and her contacts could tell him. DeMarco figured that if Campbell actually was the insider at Reston, he had to have a partner, as Emma had said—a partner who made investments on the basis of the information Campbell provided and then hid the trail from the SEC. What DeMarco was hoping was that after he had lied to Campbell about Molly Mahoney having information she could pass on to the SEC, Campbell might panic and call his partner—assuming he even had a partner and was doing anything illegal. DeMarco had confronted Campbell solely because Campbell appeared to live above his means and because of a phone call Molly had overheard two years ago that might have been perfectly innocent. He’d also confronted him because he couldn’t think of anything else to do.

“At seven thirty-five last night,” Alice said, “Campbell called a liquor store in the District that delivers.”

“Shit,” DeMarco muttered. So much for his big plan.

“At seven fifty-two, he called a cell phone belonging to a man named Russell McGrath. McGrath lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.”

“And he didn’t call anybody else? Just McGrath and the liquor store?”

“Nope. Not last night. And he didn’t make any calls from his home phone this morning.”

“Thank you, Alice. What would you like for breakfast?”

“I’d like a stack of blueberry pancakes swimming in maple syrup, but since I just bought a new negligee for my short Latin lover, I’m gonna have coffee and half a grapefruit. And while we’re eating, I want to tell you about this friend of mine. She’s got two kids but . . .

“Oh, great.”

“No, listen to me. The kids are twin girls, seniors in high school, and they’re going to college next year. They’re basically grown up, and almost out of the house.”

“College? How old is she?”

“She had the kids when she was really young. She’s younger than you. You want to see her picture?”

“Nah, that’s okay.”

Alice ignored him and took out her cell phone. “I took this the other day when we were at the gym together.”

She handed DeMarco the phone.

“Whoa!” DeMarco said when he saw the picture.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say. I told her you might give her a call.”

“What did you tell her about me?”

“That you’re a nice guy. You just need direction.”

* * *

After breakfast with Alice—he got her friend’s phone number even though he hadn’t decided if he was going to call her—and went to his office. It was time to check out Russell McGrath.

Foster, the D.C. Metro deputy chief, had told DeMarco that when Douglas Campbell was arrested twenty-four years ago, the other person arrested with him was Russell McGrath. McGrath had been one of Campbell’s teammates at UVA. So DeMarco googled McGrath—he was becoming an expert googler—and learned that McGrath had been drafted in the sixth round as a linebacker by the New York Jets, played for one year, and then his football career ended one fine Sunday when he was blindsided by some mammoth lineman who destroyed his left knee.

But why would Douglas Campbell, after being threatened by DeMarco, call an old football buddy? DeMarco realized he was probably being prejudiced, but he had a hard time imagining an ex-football player being the mastermind behind an insider trading scheme. Football players usually weren’t that bright—and they usually didn’t major in things like economics or business. But then again, maybe he was being biased just because they were guys with bigger-than-average-size necks.

He looked at the yellow legal pad lying on the corner of his desk, the pad on which he’d written down the information about Campbell’s and McGrath’s two-decade-old arrest, and saw the name of the cop who arrested them.

It took him almost an hour to track down retired Charlottesville detective Dave Torey.

* * *

DeMarco told Torey he was a lawyer—which was true—and that he was working with the SEC on an insider trading case—which was sorta true.

“I realize this is a long shot, detective,” DeMarco said, “but you arrested a UVA lineman named Douglas Campbell and another football player named Russell McGrath more than twenty years ago, and I’m just wondering if you remember the case.”

“Hell, yeah, I remember it,” Torey said, surprising DeMarco. “I got so much shit dumped on my head after I arrested those two knuckleheads that I’ll never forget that case.”

“So what happened?”

“What happened is a kid named Jimmy Sweet either fell or got thrown out a dormitory window and died, and Campbell and McGrath lied about what happened.”

Then Torey explained. This was the year UVA was going to the Citrus Bowl and Jimmy Sweet was a second-string wide receiver for the Cavaliers. Torey was working night shift at the time, and when the 911 call came in about a kid falling from a fourth-floor dorm window, he was dispatched.

“When I got there,” Torey said, “Sweet was on the sidewalk, his brains all over the place, and the campus security guys had these three kids in their office, the dumb shits.”

“What do you mean?” DeMarco said.

“I mean the college rent-a-cops put all three kids in the same room and left them alone for half an hour so they had plenty of time to agree on a story. You understand?”

“Yeah,” DeMarco said. “But you said three kids. The info I got says you only arrested two.”

“That’s right. I only arrested McGrath and Campbell.” Before DeMarco could ask why, Torey said, “Anyway, after I looked at the body, I went up to the dorm room where Sweet fell from. It was an old dorm—it was knocked down a dozen years ago—and it had these big casement windows, and the window in the room was totally busted out. Now, Sweet was a big kid, six six, over two hundred pounds, and I could see him tripping and smashing through that old window, but the thing I couldn’t understand was the position of the body. If he’d tripped, the body should have been right under the window. But it wasn’t. It was on the sidewalk about five feet away. So what I’m saying is, it would have taken some . . . some
momentum
for him to go out the window and land where he did, which means he either ran at that window and dove out or he got knocked through the window, maybe even thrown through it.”

“You mean you think these guys killed him?”

“No, I never thought they killed him. I mean, not intentionally. McGrath and Campbell were both drunk that night, really drunk, but when the doc checked Sweet’s alcohol level during the autopsy, he was sober as a judge. So I think what happened is these football players—who were all big guys—were playing grab ass, goofing around, and Sweet got accidently pushed through the window by either Campbell or McGrath. But they denied it. They insisted he just tripped over some books on the floor and fell.