Violet is broken. She probably isn’t my girl. If she was, I probably would’ve won that coin toss three years back.
Naw. Bullshit. I don’t believe in grand signs showing me my fate. I believe in seizing the future I want for myself. A broken girl that’s been all used up by Raymond Iadanza? Not likely.
The problem though is I’ve thought about her all fucking day long.
“Yo. Kill? Holy shit. Wazzup? How the fuck are you?” Hennessy greets me.
“Henny. Hey man, how’s life?”
“Life is sweet, Kill. What about with you? I heard you’re into it with an online casino, too now? That’s where the money’s really at, man. Good on ya. Been months since we chewed the fat, bro. Wish you’d’a let me in on that action.”
“It’s good, Hen. That’s a Coulter only thing, man. If I were in the market for partners I would not have hesitated.”
“Yeah, I know, Kill. But shit. It’s a good racket, huh?”
“Business is good, life’s a gift. Busy, busy. Listen… I wanna do a quick check with you on a degenerate.”
“Hit me.”
It wasn’t unusual for bookies to share information about clients. Check with one another if we had a feeling someone was out of his element by switching things around when they were at their limit with one or owed big and couldn’t pay. We checked in to make sure one of us wasn’t Peter to the other one’s Paul. When things got to that level, we knew it was often time to teach the dog a lesson or even to put the dog down. It was unfortunately common for a guy to get to his limit with one and try to bet with another hoping for a payout to take care of all his debts. Rarely worked out.
I haven’t been in the day-to-day or at Henny’s level for a few years, what with my off-track betting sports bars and now the website. The game has changed for me and this means I don’t need to deal with collections bullshit these days. At my clubs, people come in with money, they bet and they win, or they bet and they don’t win. While they take their chances, they spend coin on food and drinks with nice profit margins for me. I don’t bother with collections anymore because you don’t bet at my places if you don’t have the money up front. And my website is raking in money hand over fist with zero collections to bog me down.
I still hold bi-weekly poker games at one of my clubs. Those are for high rollers and those guys don’t need to get fronted. Ever. In fact, from the day I opened my first club, I had a no fronting policy. Didn’t want the hassles.
I may have gotten some of the money to open my first club through less than legit sources due to my connections along with taking bets and going to extremes for collections more than once, but I leveled up as soon as was feasible.
I bought out my investor and now it’s all mine. I could’ve done it almost a year ahead of the end of the contract terms, but I had to stick to the contract. It’s so profitable they wanted in longer-term, but didn’t push. We stuck to the original terms and it’s now all mine. I figured I’d have to leave town to fully break free of future obligations to that family, but they let me be, so I stayed. I grew it to a second club, a third, and I’m about to open my fourth. Financially, I’m four years ahead of my original goal.
The minute I had those debts to pay, I didn’t stop busting my ass until I was in a position to pay them, wanting the weight of those debts off my shoulders. And in all reality, I could sell the clubs and live more than comfortably off the profits of my website now, but I love watching things grow with the clubs. I have good people working for me and I like growing my business. I’ve already done the hard work, so now it’s mostly gravy.
“Raymond Iadanza,” I say.
“Fuck sakes,” Hennessy mutters.
“This is not a surprise reaction.”
“He’s on tilt, man. I’d say if you see that fuck, you tell him he sees me within twenty-four hours or he’s on my list, but I know that’s beneath you, Kill, so I won’t say it.”
“Shouldn’t let them get to that point, Henny. But you know this, so I shouldn’t have to say it.”
“Yeah, I know it. Bookmakers shouldn’t have big hearts, my man.”
“No, they shouldn’t. Can I ask?”
“Six large. I agreed to payments. He’s about to be two payments behind by tomorrow and I’m ready to start paying visits. Tell me he’s not into it with you, too?”
“Naw man, got different business with him. Just wanted the big picture.”
I shoot the shit with Hennessy for five minutes after that. He doesn’t ask me any other questions about why I’m lookin’ into Iadanza.
When I hang up, I have another fuckin’ flashback of Violet in that towel that morning, hair wet, draped over her creamy naked shoulders, her teeth embedded into that lip as she blushed in embarrassment while she checked me out. And not for the first time.
And then I went into the bathroom and looked at her fucking panties on the back of the toilet.
Yeah, it’ll happen; the memory of those panties has my wheels churning over ways I can use Raymond’s weakness against him to give that girl the chance to kick him to the curb.
I sip my drink and scroll to find the ass-wipe in my phone. We exchanged numbers the night before.
“Kill. Hey!” he answers on the first ring.
Eager fuckin’ weasel.
“What are you doin’ tomorrow night, Raymond?”
“Uh… dunno. Why?”
“Wanna sit in on my private game at Genesis?”
There’s a long silence before he speaks up.
“I… uh…” he struggles.
“There are rarely empty chairs, but tomorrow night I happen to have one,” I say.
He has no money. And he’s in the shitter already with his debt to Hennessy. I won’t offer to front him. He’ll have to ask. Even I’d bet on it and I’m not usually a betting man.
I understand the rules of the games better than most, but I know the house always wins in the end so decided a long time ago that my best bet was to be that house.
After a too-long beat of dead air, he speaks.
“I think I got something I can’t get out of man. I’ll check. I… uh… if I can swing it, what are the details?”
I smile. Hm. I’m wrong.
“If you can swing it, call me back and we’ll go from there. Let me know by tomorrow morning, man. Before ten.”
This shithead probably doesn’t get up before ten, ever.
“Will do. Thanks for askin’, brah. ‘Preciate it.”
“Gonna be a sweet game, Raymond.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah, man.”
“See what I can do. My girl’s got me committed to doin’ this thing with her and… you know how it is. Gotta keep ‘em happy. I’ll see what I can swing.”
“Right. Ciao,” I say and hang up.
I make another drink, drink it back fast, and chew the ice cubes, feeling sourness at the fact that she’s likely home from work, in that apartment, with that fucker.
He didn’t ask me outright what the buy-in was. This makes me think he isn’t gonna try to come. I suspect he’ll lie awake all night trying to think of a way to get to that game. Gamblers at his level in this city have hard-ons to get invited to one of my private tables.