“I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT MAN is your father.”
We were sitting together on the sand, looking out on the vast, unfathomable ocean. It was a relief to be away from Bimini Place. Tony’s father had cast a sinister shadow over the whole building.
Tony tried to put his arm around me, but I stiffened.
“Don’t judge me by my father, Marisa,” he said. “I barely know the man.” The rays of the setting sun cast a golden glow over Tony’s face as he stared out to sea.
“How come?”
Tony took a deep breath. “He wasn’t exactly what you’d call a role model. He was barely even a father. He would disappear for months, sometimes years at a time. We never relied on him for anything. Once in a while he’d just … show up. Act like he’d never been away.”
“And your mom would just let him in?”
Tony smiled sadly. “Oh, she hated him. Used to call him a no-good short son of a bitch. But she always took him back. Always.”
I thought about my parents’ bitter relationship, which suddenly seemed rosy in comparison.
“When I was thirteen he pulled up, out of the blue, in a brand-new silver Caddy. We were dirt-poor at the time. And there’s my pop in the coolest car I’d ever laid eyes on. He took me out for a spin, and … I can’t tell you how good it felt when my friends saw me driving around in this kick-ass Cadillac.” Tony was smiling now. I could see from the faraway look in his eyes that he was wistfully reliving that day. Then a shadow fell across his face.
“Go on,” I whispered.
“Dad said he had something to take care of. I didn’t ask what. I didn’t want to say anything to rock the boat, now he was back. We drove to the Tenderloin, and it was a war zone down there. The stores were all shuttered. Bums sitting on the corners drinking outta paper bags. Hookers parading up and down. And Dad, he slows down to a crawl, peering up and down the street, muttering to himself. Finally he sees the guy he’s looking for. Some black guy on the corner. Dad pulls over and tells me to roll down the window and call the guy over, you know? So I roll it down, and yell Hey, mister! The guy struts over to the car, real cool, and leans in.
“The next thing I know … Crack! Pop takes off, full tilt. It takes me a moment to realize that he just shot the guy in the face. And I’m sitting there covered in blood and brains.”
I was stunned into silence. “He killed him?” I said at last. “Just like that—right in front of you?”
“Blew the guy’s face off. You shoulda heard Mom yelling when he dropped me off at home. I looked like I’d just got done slaughtering cattle. Dad tells her I got a nosebleed. After that he disappeared again. We didn’t see or hear anything from him for almost four years. I figured he was in jail or dead. Then one day he calls the house. I was seventeen.”
“What did he want?”
“He’s got a job for me in Los Angeles. He hooked me in by promising that I’d be going back home in a few weeks with a lot of money for Mom and the girls. I took two weeks off work and drove down to L.A. He opens the door and the place is a mess—needles, burnt spoons, the works. He’s strung out on heroin, barely coherent. He was supposed to be answering phones for Sacco.”
“Ron?” I could not fathom that Ron would ever associate with someone like Tony’s father. “Your father worked for Sacco?”
“They were old friends. Dad and Sacco started taking bets together twenty years ago. They were partners until Dad fucked it up as usual. He got into drug trafficking, started hanging around shady people. Ron was smart enough to realize that Dad was bad for business, so he bought him out. Five years later, he calls Ron, flat broke, begging for a job. I guess Sacco felt he owed him, so he gave him a job clerking. Back then Sacco had satellite offices—one clerk, one phone per apartment, taking bets from a group of players. He had seven of them at Bimini Place. The building was falling apart, so the owner didn’t care what went on as long as the rent was paid. Sacco set Dad up in one of the apartments, and the landlord turned a blind eye.
“Only Dad was all fucked up and he wasn’t answering the phones. Ron starts getting complaints from the players, so he goes to check on Dad and finds him out cold. He gives Pop one last chance to get it together, and that’s when Pop called me. When I got down there, he was in no state to work. That was my crash course in the art of bookmaking.”
Although I was saddened by Tony’s story, I was also grimly intrigued. This was the most he had ever told me about his past.
“Jim told me that Sacco didn’t really start making money until you came along,” I said.
Tony smiled. “I always had a head for numbers. Bookmaking just made sense to me straightaway. There are patterns, you know … I paid attention to how the players were betting. I began to adjust the lines myself. If we were three on San Diego and a player had already bet it twice, I’d give it to him at minus four. Back then the whole system was still in its infancy. Ron would call every few hours with the changes. But I didn’t need his changes, because I was making my own. My office was the only one consistently making money. Funny thing was, Ron had no idea I was even working there. Not until we got busted. That was twelve years ago—my first arrest, the day after my eighteenth birthday. It was the only time the cops didn’t confuse me with my dad. You remember I told you that my name causes me problems? That’s because when they put it in the computer, Pop’s record shows up as well. And believe me, he’s been busted for a whole lot more than bookmaking.”
I thought of the pallid little man I had encountered earlier. Even when he wasn’t around, he was wreaking havoc with Tony’s life.
“Sacco came down to the station to bail us out. He recognized me straightaway, even thought he hadn’t seen me since I was a kid. He paid the fines, asked me to stay on. I figured, what the hell? I already had a record. So Ron rents a warehouse, puts all the satellite offices under one roof and gives me the job of running it. Business started booming. I’ve made Ron a lot of money, but he’s always been good to me in return. If not for Ron, I wouldn’t be able to take care of my mom and sisters. I bought them a house in northern California, put my little sisters in Catholic school and helped my brother-in-law start his own business.”
“All the things your father should have been doing,” I said.
“Ron’s been more of a father to me than mine ever was.”
I took a deep breath. I was glad to know more about where Tony came from, but it didn’t solve the problem of his father being back in the picture. “So how often do you see your father?”
Tony shrugged. “Not often. Whenever he needs something. The only reason I see him at all is because he knows where to find me.”
“Maybe you should move.”
“It’s not that easy, Marisa. Larry—the manager of Bimini Place—he’s an old friend. When Ron pulled the satellite offices out of the building, it was a huge blow to him. Larry’s always been good to me. That’s why I stayed there and why I’ll keep renting the apartment, even if I don’t live in it. Larry’s like family.”
I nodded. I knew that loyalty was very important to Tony, a quality that made him completely different from his father.
“What happened to your father’s back?” I asked tentatively. “Was he stabbed?”
“No … when he was a little kid, he had a lump on his back that just kept growing and growing. Back then the family couldn’t afford to take him to a doctor. By the time he was eleven, it had grown into a huge hump. The doctors had to cut him open. Inside they found a bunch of hair, flesh, and teeth. The doctors said that my pop had absorbed his twin brother in the womb, and the twin was using his body, like a parasite, to keep growing. They removed it, but the operation stunted his growth.”
I shuddered, but it seemed oddly appropriate—Tony’s father, the evil twin that ate its brother.
“Did your father really come here for your birthday?”
Tony put his arms around me and pulled me close. I did not resist this time. Amusement flecked his voice as he said, “That’s what’s so sweet about you, Marisa. You always look for the good in people. No, he didn’t come for my birthday. Not even close.”
“What, then?”
“Dad’s importing heroin from Thailand. He came because he needs a favor.”
“Heroin? You mean, that powder in your apartment was heroin?”
“Yeah. China white. Worth a small fortune.”
To me the word heroin was synonymous with death. “Do you do heroin?” I whispered.
“I tried it once. Just once. Look, Marisa, I’ve been in L.A. a long time. You’re the only person I’ve ever met who doesn’t drink or get high.”
“So you do drugs.” I felt my chest tightening. “What drugs?”
“Coke.” I broke free of his embrace, and he quickly added, “I’ve been doing a lot less of it recently.”
“Why, though? Why do you do it?”
I never understood the appeal of getting drunk or high. I was a risk taker, but I always wanted to be in control. The idea of being dependent on a substance was insane to me. I couldn’t respect someone who took drugs. And without respect, no relationship can survive.
“Why do I do coke?” Tony pondered the question. “There’s the practical reason—I do it to stay awake. I work six days a week and grade nights. I need something to keep me functioning.”
“You should try coffee,” I sniffed.
“But”—Tony placed his hand on my arm—“ever since we’ve been together, I’ve barely touched it. I’ve been spending a lot more of my time in bed these days.”
I knew he was trying to lighten the mood, but it didn’t matter. My eyes started tearing.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Come here. Look, I think it’s great that you don’t do drugs. I love that about you. I’d never want you to start.”
The tears started coming. I wasn’t angry, though. I was simply crying for the little boy that Tony had once been. I felt desperately sorry for him. His childhood, his entire life, could not have been any more different from mine. He pulled me close and I buried my face in his neck. If he loves me, I thought, he won’t need drugs. I breathed in the clean, warm scent of his skin.
“I love you,” I whispered.
BACK AT THE OFFICE, the workload eased off. Baseball season was in full swing, and that sport was decidedly less popular with our players. Many of them opted to take the entire season off. With the lighter workload came more free time. Tony and I made the most of it, exploring southern California together on his Harley.
One evening Tony took me to Tale O The Pup, an iconic Los Angeles hot dog stand shaped like a giant hot dog. It was one of the last survivors of the 1950s trend of buildings created to mimic the products sold in them. I had my first chili dog there, sitting outside on a balmy summer night. I told Tony again, “I love you,” hoping that he would say it back to me.
He didn’t understand how much I needed to hear him say those words. I knew, deep down, that he must love me. How could he not? What we had was so incredibly intense, passionate, and tender. I knew he felt it as well. Why couldn’t he say it?
“GOD” WAS THE MONIKER that the guys came up with for the pen-shaped device Tony used to silence the phones. God turned out to be an extremely useful gadget. Being able to shut the phones off until we opened gave us some much-needed peace and quiet.
One Saturday in June, however, Tony was pissed. “Where the fuck is God?” he demanded, storming around the office. His pointed question drew the usual round of wisecracks from the guys.
“God is everywhere!”
Tony continued rummaging around the desks.
“Actually, Danny, Nietzsche postulated that God is dead,” Mathew pointed out, with the assumed air of a philosophy professor.
Tony, who had little time for philosophy—especially moments before the opening line—replied with a decisive “Shut up and help me look!”
As Tony stormed past me, I noticed something slim and silver poking out of his back pocket. I reached over and plucked it out.
“God was with you the whole time,” I said. With a click, the phones screamed to life.
As usual, I checked the monitor periodically. Sergeant Gibson seemed to have forgotten about us, but we remained on high alert. The screens showed an unchanging picture of the deserted streets in front of the building—just another day at the office.
However, at the back of the warehouse, sheriffs, officers, detectives, and electronics specialists were quietly assembling. Red and Duke had indeed reinforced the garage door and rear exit with steel, as promised. They’d also loosened the hinges on the back door, allowing Gibson’s men to wedge it open with a crowbar. One by one, this grim assemblage filed into the warehouse like shadows. They crept past the parked van, weapons drawn. The incessant ringing of the phones and our harried voices, frantically taking bets, drowned out their approach.
I was reading a player the line when I saw a subtle movement out of the corner of my eye. I glanced up and spotted Sergeant Gibson. For a moment, I thought he was a hallucination. The apparition didn’t make a sound—he just stood there, face twisted in a humorless grin. As I opened my mouth to warn the others, the officers swarmed in.
This raid was a much bigger deal than the one before. From the number of cops I knew there was no way we’d be answering phones from a backup office in the morning. A deep, heavy sadness flooded me as the cops swarmed around us with practiced efficiency. I sensed that this would be the end of everything.
“Up against the walls.”
Plainclothes officers slipped into our vacated seats, answering phones and smoothly recording wagers. The transition was flawless. Our players didn’t notice that they were placing bets with undercover detectives.
Gibson was rummaging around on the desks, clearly looking for something in particular. He was a lot calmer this time around. He had really done his homework. Suddenly his eyes lit up and he made for Tony, plucking God from where it was clipped onto Tony’s T-shirt. Without hesitating, Gibson depressed the button and the phones were instantly silenced. He winked at Tony, letting us all know that he was in on the joke. This intimate knowledge could only mean one thing—Red and Duke had set us up.
We would later learn that they had been working undercover for the FBI and the DEA for over a decade. Their bust of Ron Sacco subsequently blew their cover for good.
Handcuffed and lined up against the wall, we gravely listened to the angry thump of hammers and the whining roar of power saws as the secret drawer and workbench were expertly dismantled. This time around, the authorities were not going to miss out on any vital evidence. Their smooth, coordinated precision was almost more frightening than the violent and chaotic raid that had preceded it. No screaming, no threats, no physical violence. They had specialists on hand to take the office apart in minutes.
As the raid went on, the sobering reality of the consequences I now faced became apparent. What was I doing here, sitting on the floor in handcuffs, alongside this ragtag bunch of lawbreakers and misfits? Me—cosmopolitan, educated, with a father who worked for the United Nations? What was I thinking? How could I have been so stupid? Did I really believe that breaking the law could be so easy, that I wouldn’t have to pay the price?
A camera crew arrived, and then another, and another. We were making national news. In fact, we were headlining. As the office turned into a media circus, Sergeant Gibson came over, squatted in front of me and looked me in the eye. “Look who’s fucked now,” he breathed, casually knocking my baseball cap off my head and exposing my face to the cameras. I desperately twisted away, hoping my parents wouldn’t recognize their daughter’s face when they turned on the evening news.
Eventually, the reporters and the camera crews were ushered out along with the sheriffs and detectives, leaving the LAPD to finish up. I looked miserably at Tony. He was staring off into the distance, lost in thought. I felt a pang of despair as I realized I would probably not see him again for a very long time.
Two female officers came over and helped me to my feet. I looked back at Tony one last, desperate time. He looked up and our eyes locked.
“I love you,” he mouthed.