Death Match - Diane Duane [10]
“They’re good,” said Heming, rather helplessly.
“They’re too good,” Darjan said, frowning. “And some-thing’s gonna be done about it, one way or another. Too much rides on things going the way they were planned to go at the beginning of the season. The spreads, even the casual betting spreads, are going to be disturbed. We can’t have it, Heming. The investors are going to turn their backs on us, and some of them we spent too much time and money getting hold of in the first place to lose now. So you better tell me what you have in mind…otherwise ‘overt’ is going to be the order of the day, whether you like it or not.”
Heming shook his head. “You wouldn’t want to—”
“Don’t tell me what I want. Instead tell me how you’re going to fix it. Nonovertly.”
Heming thought for a moment. “Well, some of it would be an outgrowth of how we would keep things running normally outside of the playoffs.”
Darjan considered this for a moment. “You’re going to have to ‘oil’ different people,” he said. “Higher up. The kind who’d be more likely to blow the whistle.”
“Not if the incentives are correctly applied,” said Heming, “and if they’re big enough. Everybody has their price. Just a matter of seeing how high you have to go…. And after that, because of the increased price…they’re that much more eager to keep quiet. Because if word ever gets out…” He smiled. “Scandal. Bad publicity. Lawsuits, public prosecutions, jail terms…All very messy.”
“And you can hold that over them, of course.”
“Of course. The leaks would seem to come from somewhere else, somewhere ‘respectable,’ when they came.”
The first man nodded slowly. “All right. We can try it your way first. Do you have some targets in mind?”
“Several.”
“Get on it, then. Do what you have to. But hurry up! This was the last of the preliminary bouts. The serious betting always starts at the eighth-final level. It’s started already. The whole structure of the ‘pools’ betting will start to be affected soon, if you don’t get them out of the running.”
Heming looked thoughtful for a moment. “Obviously we won’t get results until the first eighth-final game,” he said.
“That’s Monday,” Darjan said. “South Florida versus Chicago versus Toronto, if I remember correctly. Chicago was scheduled to win, when the third was going to be New Orleans.” His face set grim, and he glanced up. “Certain people,” he said, “were—are—very committed to Chicago. Believe me, you wouldn’t like to have to explain to them how their team got knocked out at the eighth-final stage by a bunch of landscape gardeners and sanitation engineers. Amateurs—”
“It won’t happen,” said Heming.
“Pray that it doesn’t,” said Darjan. “Get on it. Get in touch with me tomorrow and tell me what progress you’ve made.”
Heming went out hurriedly through the open French doors to the square, where the afternoon light was beginning to tarnish. Darjan looked after him, once more reaching around to the martini glass and beginning to turn it around and around on the white marble. Then his hand clenched slowly around the stem. A moment later there was a sharp crack as the stem of the Dartington crystal, tough as it was, gave way. This being virtual experience, there was no blood.
Elsewhere, however, Darjan thought, in reality, unless Heming gets busy, things will be very different….
2
The monthly regional Net Force Explorers meetings could turn into a real mob scene sometimes, so Catie liked to get to them early when she could. But that evening she was almost foiled in this intention by her mother, who, just as Catie was heading back down to the family room, came edging in through the kicked-open front door with her arms full of shopping bags, and also with several canvas bags full of books hanging from her, so that she looked like some very overworked beast of burden. “Oh, honey, help!” her mom said. “The groceries—!”
Catie hurried down the front hall to her and