I RANG my ex-bookie friend Walter for the first time in months and he said he’d sold his business for £500,000. As someone who has lent fivers to him, this came as a surprise to me. Since I thought he gave the business up because it wasn’t paying it even qualified as a mild shock.
He already sounded so cocky that I merely remarked that it seemed a bit of a result. “Yeah,” Walter said with the air of a Greek shipping tycoon. “Of course it’s only fair I recognise Graham’s input so we’re splitting it, 250 grand each.”
Graham was his partner, the silent one whom Walter claimed had gangster connections. Balderdash. As for his “input”, this had mainly involved hoovering up red wine with Walter at the Spanish gaff across the road and sharing escort girls with him.
“The only thing is we’ve got to work for them for a year,” Walter continued airily. “Y’know, show them the ropes. But when an offer comes in this size you can’t choose your bedfellows, Jon.”
Right.
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“And it’s a shame in a way because with our new strategies we were starting to grow the business.”
“Strategies”? The only bookmaking strategy Walter ever told me was that he didn’t bother reading the form any more. “I just nick the odds off Corals and if any money comes in, slash ‘em by half,” were the exact words. The last time I stayed round there I found Walter asleep on the carpet in front of his racing channel screens, an empty wine glass still attached to his arm.
Walter said as well as the cash he’d negotiated share options. I should invest myself if I had a few hundred lying around. I said, sod that, could he lend me a grand for a few months? I needed a new trimmer to sculpt my garden hedge. OK, I fancied a trip to the Arc. Walter said no problem. Come round to his office at end of play tomorrow. I hung up. Any more of this and I’d have needed a paramedic.
The next afternoon I went to his new offices off Regent Street. Scrubbed young men and women scurried about with airs of great purpose. Graham and Walter were in a glass-walled office, being berated in no uncertain terms by a ruddy man in an expensive dark suit. This I would learn was their new boss, Larry. Walter was gesticulating apologetically while Graham stared fearfully at his computer screen, his mob connections clearly of no aid.
Walter skulked out and we toured the area while he collected my grand using several bank cards and different cash machines. Strange. This was more like the old Walter, not the new, Onassis, one.
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We headed to the Spanish gaff and after a couple of reds he began spilling the beans. The 500 grand hadn’t been in cash. It was all shares. The shares had since plummeted. He couldn’t cash them for another year and by then they’d be worthless. Larry had done them up like kippers.
“So why the hell did you tell me to invest, Walter?” I said. “I’m sorry, Jon,” Walter said. “I was in denial.”
Well everyone knows denial is just a river in Africa but still, I hadn’t seen Walter so rueful since he lent me a car without telling me it needed two bottles of radiator sealant per day.
“It gets worse, Jon,” he intoned gravely. “I’ve been taking bets in the office. They’re all mugs apart from Larry. Then today I took a £100 bet from him on a 20-1 shot at Sandown without laying it off. And it won.”
“Christ, what did you do?” I said. “I told him there was a late plunge and that it started at eights. He wasn’t pleased. That’s what all that was about in there.”
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“But you’re in the clear, apart from the eight hundred?”, “No, because what if he reads the 20-1 in the paper tomorrow? Graham’s going in early to cut all the Sandown results out of the papers and hope Larry doesn’t notice.”
Now that’s what I call input. Of course I gave him his grand back and left him staring at his red. I may still be counting my change but such complex acts of high finance are best left to the likes of Walter and Graham.