Baltimore Noir - Laura Lippman [63]
Tommy was shaking his head in disbelief.
“I mean, Eddie wound up dead a few years later, so whoever he told must’ve known after the fact, but don’t forget now, this was more’n thirty years ago.” He paused to sip at his drink again. “Anyway, long horror story short, the Mets take game two, then three and four, and Angelo, while he’s making it hand over fist on the local book, everybody and their mother was all over the O’s, huge favorites they were going into the series that year, two twenny-game winners, that lineup and all, like I said, we all killed on that series, anybody taking action.”
“What my old man said,” Tommy interjected. “Big money year that was, the sports book.”
“Right,” Jilly said. “But it was Angelo’s pride killed a guy. After the Colts lost to the Jets, Angelo hated anything New York. Anything had to do with the place. Even though we made on that game, too, all the local money was laying the eighteen points, some guys were giving nineteen, even with the money we made off the Super Bowl there, it was after the Mets upset the O’s he went completely crazy. He tells me and Eddie after the O’s drop game four, if they lose game five, which they did, we was going back to the stadium there with the kid his wife was banging and toss him off the roof. ‘Let the cocksucker see if he can fly like an Oriole,’ he tells us.”
Tommy sat up straight. “Holy shit,” he said. “That was you?”
Jilly put a finger to his lips. “Easy does it,” he said. “No need to announce it here.”
“Holy shit,” repeated Tommy, a little lower this time. “Holy fuckin shit, Jilly. I remember my old man talkin about that one day. He was explainin to me the worst thing he ever witnessed, the Erioles losing to the Mets like that. He said some guy was so depressed, some kid worked the stadium there, he went up the roof and jumped.”
“It’s better that’s what people think,” Jilly said.
Tommy chuckled. “I wished the old man was still alive. I could straighten him out on that, him and his fuckin Erioles.”
Jilly took offense. “What, you got something against the O’s?”
“I couldn’t care less,” said Tommy, waving the question off. “Fuckin faggots making telephone-number salaries to play games. Please. I like to shake them down is what I’d like to do. I put it to a guy a couple years ago, about shakin down some of those clowns, see how tough they are with a gun in their mouths, see if they wanna part with some of that cash they make for jerkin off half speed around the bases, but he says it’d bring federal attention unless we went after the home team guys lived in Baltimore, and he wasn’t about to shake down a couple of home team guys.”
Jilly was expressionless.
Tommy said, “You can relax, Jilly, I didn’t do it. I never bothered. Need a crew to get away with somethin like that, at least a partner with big enough balls.”
“Yeah, well, just pick another city, you’re gonna do something crazy like that. ’Less you wanna make a couple hundred thousand enemies.”
“It was an idea. Nothin ever come of it.”
Jilly was still staring. Tommy opened his hands and said, “What, I burn a picture of the Pope?”
Jilly rubbed his face.
“What happened afterwards?” Tommy asked. “The kid dove off the cliffs there? Angelo is still married, no?”
“Different broad,” Jilly said. “Different Maria, come to think of it. The original was let go shortly thereafter, the difference between the father and son, you ask me. One has balls, speaking of them. The other don’t.”
Tommy was confused. “Let go how? What, his old lady isn’t the same one back then?”
“He gave her walking papers and not a fucking dime to go with them,” Jilly said. “I get the call to drop her off the Travel Plaza, give her the scratch for a bus ticket, like the Peter fucking Pan, one fucking way, and that’s what I did. She had