The Black Marble Read Online Free PDF Page B

begged. “I wanna pay you sooner. I wanna pay you Monday morning.”
    â€œWell that’s different,” the voice said, considerably more congenial.
    â€œI can pay you all of it, Arnold. On Monday. But you just gotta get me down on Minnesota in the Super Bowl.”
    â€œGood night, Philo.”
    â€œWait! Wait, goddamnit!” Philo pleaded. “I been a good customer, Arnold. I been good. I been a friend!”
    â€œPhilo, you can’t pay the eight K. Some guys are gonna be awful upset, and now you wanna get down some more?”
    â€œArnold, remember I told you Mavis has this property? It’s an apartment building in Covina. Remember I told you? Well we sold it. We’re netting eighty-five thousand! Christ, the escrow closes in ten days! Even if Minnesota loses Sunday and my markers go higher, I can pay all of it in ten days!”
    There was silence on the line and then the voice said: “Come see me tomorrow. With the escrow papers. Prove you got the property. You got it, you sold it, you prove it, Philo.”
    â€œArnold, please! Mavis can’t know about this. Goddamnit, it’s technically her property from her first husband! I can’t take a chance on Mavis finding out about the markers. Trust me! Please, Arnold!”
    There was silence again and the voice said, “How much you wanna get down?”
    â€œWhat’s the best you can get me this late?”
    â€œSix points.”
    â€œOkay, get me down for seven thousand.”
    â€œYou’re fucking crazy , Philo. Good night.”
    â€œWait! Wait! Lay it off, you don’t wanna cover it!”
    â€œPhilo, Minnesota is gonna lose. I tell you as a friend, Oakland’s gonna win by ten at least.”
    â€œSo what! I’m gonna have eighty-five thousand in ten days!”
    Silence, and then: “Okay, and if you’re wrong, your bill is gonna be fifteen thousand with our little store, counting the vigorish. That’s outta my hands, Philo. You don’t pay and it’s outta my hands.”
    That night, while a tortured woman in a Pasadena mansion slept thanks to Scotch and drugs, and a tortured man in a furnished Hollywood apartment slept thanks to Russian vodka, Philo Skinner, cold sober and electrified, slept not at all.
    Minnesota would win. Win, goddamnit! And then it would all be academic. There’d be no need to do it. He could maybe even laugh about it. To himself. But if Minnesota lost. If they lost … And then, the epiphany: He knew Minnesota would lose. He wanted Minnesota to lose. And he was betting on them.
    If Minnesota won he’d merely be covering his losses. His miserable life would be essentially unchanged. But if Minnesota lost … if they lost , he’d have to do it. And it would work. And he’d have eighty-five thousand dollars. Seventy thousand after paying his gambling losses. Seventy thousand tax-free dollars! But not from an escrow.
    There was no escrow. There was no apartment house. He owned nothing but his business, and Skinner Kennels was hopelessly in the red. His house might net five thousand after the second mortgage was paid off. His four-year-old white El Dorado wasn’t worth what he still owed on it.
    The way out had come to him tonight, there in the grooming room, while Mavis was poor-mouthing him. Stripping, stripping it all away. But like most neophytes, Philo Skinner needed impetus to commit a serious crime.
    Fear. He smoked, and sweated the length of his six-foot-three-inch frame. He listened to Mavis snore, and rain patter, and welcomed the rush of fear. That’s what he needed. He even helped it along. He tried to imagine what they’d do to him if Minnesota lost. When Minnesota lost. If he phoned Arnold and told him it was a lie about owning an apartment house, that he couldn’t pay.
    Someone would come to the kennel when he was alone, at night. It wouldn’t be Arnold of course. He tried to imagine the man.