4:35 AM, Monday, August 18th, 2014
At some point, out of sheer exhaustion, I must have drifted off. I was startled awake by a nurse coming into the unit to take Sterling Moon’s vitals. When she touched him he coughed and shifted in his bed.
I raised my eyes to hers, “He’s awake?”
“Yes but he’s pretty groggy and he may be for a while.”
Moon rasped something as she was leaving the room and pointed at his throat. She turned back to him but missed the gesture.
“I think he’s saying he wants water.”
“I’ll have an aide bring some in. He can have small sips.”
He looked me over as I sat in the bedside chair. Recognition dawned on his face. Okay, he’s not as groggy as she thinks...
Moon was on oxygen but he was breathing on his own. That was a good sign. I was hopeful that when he got a little water down, he’d be able to talk.
A male aide appeared with a large plastic cup of ice water. He held the straw to Moon’s lips and watched as he took his first tentative sips. “Like that,” the aide said. “Small sips like that,” and then he was gone.
“Do you know where you are or what day it is?”
“They asked me those questions when I got here,” he rasped out in a barely audible whisper.
I moved the chair right up to the bed, as close to his head as I could get and took out my note pad. “Do you know why you’re here?”
“My legs...my legs are messed up pretty bad.”
“That’s not all, but that’s a start. You were beaten badly and dumped; left for dead under the Y Bridge. A few more feet and you’d have drowned in the Muskingum.” His eyes widened in fear.
“Do you know who beat you?”
He started to shake his head no but stopped and pressed the fingertips of both hands to his skull like he was feeling pain.
“Mr. Moon, my department has been looking for you for over a week. JD Roberts is dead after taking a bad beating. Whoever killed him nearly did the same to you. I need to find these people before they find you again.”
Sterling Moon swallowed hard and winced. He raised the cup he still held with some effort and took a couple of more small sips of his water. I waited patiently. I wasn’t leaving until I had the information I’d gotten out of bed in the dead heat of an August night to come and get.
“You and JD hustled pool?”
He nodded and sipped some more.
“You played at Ray’s?”
He half shrugged his shoulders, “There...other places.”
“You two run numbers too?”
He shook his head no. “JD, not me.”
“You weren’t working for a bookie?”
This time he looked me in the eye and said it, “No.” His voice was getting a little stronger.
“So JD worked for this bookie...do you know who the bookie was?”
“No.”
“Did JD take bets or just run the pays?”
Moon let loose of his cup with one hand and waggled it in the air.
“So, so?”
He tried to talk, coughed instead and then took a sip of water. “Mostly collected...took the money to an actual runner.”
“He didn’t carry payoffs back?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Why do you suppose that was?”
He rubbed his matted hair with a badly bruised hand and groaned softly. I waited while he formed his thoughts.
He indicated the rolling table and I moved it toward him. After putting the cup down but keeping a hand on it, he started speaking again, “We won some money playing pool...split it. He started betting and winning a little...wanted more. The high rollers he ran money from...wanted to be like them.”
“Let me get this straight, if he was collecting from them, they were losing right?”
Moon grimaced, “Couldn’t tell him nothin’. He borrowed some money from the bookie and started to bet big like ...lost his shirt.”
“How much?”
“’Bout five ‘G’. Guy wanted his money. JD started chasing after bets with paychecks and playin’ pool to win it back but he kept losing and he wasn’t no good no more with the pool either.”
Too much stress...
“The bookie cut him off and sent some guys around to scare him...wanted to take off but he didn’t have the money.”
“So, he cooked up a plan to get it?”
Moon nodded.
“You were in on that?”
He looked down at his legs, both in casts and then at his battered arms. “Yeah...I was. Stupid...”
“Tell me about the plan.”
“We hustled the high rollers at Ray’s in pool...that’s how he knew them. Two of them brought a third guy in and he whopped up on JD, one on one. After that, JD got buddy, buddy with all of them...wanted in with them.” He lifted his water, took a sip and set it carefully back on the narrow table.
“Go on...”
“When he couldn’t pay, he thought he’d rook those guys into covering his debt and getting a little seed money to go somewhere else.”
“How on earth did he figure on doing that?” I was confused.
“Told you, JD didn’t see the payouts, only the losses. Figured they had to be winning big sometimes to keep betting so big. He wanted to cash in on a losing streak.”
“Okay, so I’m really confused. How did he plan on setting them up to lose if he was only carrying their pays to a runner? He can’t predict a loss unless he knows their bets...”
He shook a finger at me, “That’s it right there. You got it.”
I grunted, “Got what?”
“JD knew when they’d be betting crazy and taking some losses. ‘Preakness and Belmont came and they bet on every crazy thing. Lost their asses on some of it.”
“Back in May and June?”
“Yeah. He knew if they bet on that stuff and since they were already betting on baseball, they’d probably go crazy betting on all the stupid shit to bet on with the All Star Game. He, uh, he rigged up their bets for the game.”
“That was in what, like the middle of July?” Moon nodded. “JD died August 6th. It doesn’t wash.”
“It’s true, whether you believe me or not.”
“So how’d you do it and don’t yank my chain because I know he couldn’t do it alone.”
Moon took a gulp of his water and sputter coughed for several seconds. I wasn’t letting him off the hook. I needed to know what went down.
“They called their bets in to the bookie. Everyone had a code they gave when they called in...no names. Bookie changed the call in number every week or so. JD cashed his paycheck one night just before the break and took it all to the bar. Flashed it a little like he just won it. Told the guys he was betting on the game. Called me...I was using a throwaway cell. Gave me his code and placed multiple bets.”
He got off the phone with me and jawed with them about the game, got em worked up. Told them they ought to go ahead and bet and then slipped to them that the bookie had changed the number again. Gave them the cell I had.”
“They all bit?”
“Hell yeah. We figured everything was cool. Game time came around and when it was all over, they lost more than $29,000 grand between them. It was enough to pay off the debt, the interest and for JD to get the hell out of town and start over. He went to the bar on his usual night to collect but none of them were there. He blew it off. Went back the next collection night, still not there. He couldn’t say nothin’ to the runner since...you know...didn’t involve the runner. Dumbass kept going back to the bar thinkin’ they’d show because he thought maybe they somehow got their pays there too but they never did.”
“What do you think happened?”
“I think he didn’t think it all through very well, stupid fuck. Those three, they were a step ahead of him. They didn’t lose every bet that game and they bet on other ball games too. Whoever paid them out must have tipped them that they’d been had. I think he thought they’d pay up quick before anything like that could happen.”
“They could have been parlaying wins against losses and delaying payments all along,” I said. “How would JD have even known?”
“True,” he coughed, “but they always showed up at Ray’s. It was their hangout.”
“Hmm. You got me there.”
“I think they might have been waiting for JD that last night and beat him up for trying to screw them.”
“You don’t think the bookie had him beat up for what he owed and, maybe, for trying to pull a fast one on him and his customers?”
He gripped the table edge with his less battered left hand and shook his head slowly. “Hell, I don’t know.”
“Look at yourself, Moon. If the bookie didn’t order the beatings, why are you here?” He didn’t have an answer for me.
“The bartender remembers JD being there that night. He says he acted like he was waiting for the guys he usually played pool with but no one showed. I think the bookies leg breakers were waiting for him and they beat him up to teach him a lesson but didn’t kill him because he still owed money. I also think they knew about you because the pool players remembered you and put two and two together for them. You became the target when JD died unexpectedly.”
Moon turned his face away from me.
“You know that too don’t you? You figure that JD gave you up trying to save his own neck. That’s why you went into hiding, isn’t it?”