Читать книгу Hard Cuddles - James Harding - Страница 18

DOGGY STYLE AND THE COIN TOSS

‘There is no such thing as good money and bad money. There’s just money.’

— Lucky Luciano

After my first taste with organised crime, after having successfully planted the seed of fear in Lump, I have to say it really grew on me. The power was addictive and the thrill of having control over someone else was exciting. My main focus was myself and making sure I was treated with the respect I felt that I deserved. But every now and again someone comes along to test you and it’s pretty obvious that you need to eliminate the problem.

For business management class we had to set up a small business at school and work out our profit/loss, outgoings and everything associated with running a business. The thought of this was tantalising for me, making money has never been a problem. I teamed up with another couple of guys and we decided to run a hot dog stand and call it ‘Doggy Style’. It was a great idea and would have worked but the teachers canned it, on the account of the name. I would not budge. It was the central focus of the business and its main drawcard. The teacher, to his credit, laughed and liked the name, but being a Catholic school run by brothers, it was never going to fly. So to stick it right up the school and the brothers, I organised a huge piece of laminated chipboard with different amounts of money penned in little squares: 50 cents, $3, $5, $10 and so on. The highest being $20 and if you landed a coin in the certain section of the $20 square, it was $20 x 2 = $40, a lot of money for a school kid, but also a massive incentive.

All you needed were gold coins to play and you would toss the coin and try and land it inside the square to get that amount of money. This was my first foray into illegal gambling, it was always going to be a success. The idea of the task was to gain business management experience.

It took off like wild fire, the kids queued up, three deep to take their chance at winning some cold, hard cash. There were even teachers coming over to have a shot and look at the commotion. I was directing the play, there was a bag man collecting the money, a guy scooping the losing bets off the table and three guys giving change and making sure it was all sweet.

By lunchtime the business management teacher came over and said the people running the canteen had complained because their takings were way down. I asked him if I was going to get a high distinction, instead he told me to wrap it up after lunch because it was out of control; I was amazed at how the kids would rather gamble their money, instead of buying food. Money was flying in and I loved every minute of it. I upped the ante and doubled everything on the table for the last ten minutes. ‘That’s right guys any prize is paying double,’ I yelled. The crowd went mad; people were screaming and pushing each other to get their bets on.

Then out of nowhere this little fucker, who had a head like the guy on Mad Magazine, landed his coin on the 2 x $20. That had been doubled, so he was due to collect $80. What I did was look at where the coin had landed, it was good but I quickly moved it, so no one got the chance to see it. But this little prick was adamant he had landed a good toss. Now he was yelling—or trying to yell, his voice was breaking and he was making a terrible noise. He yelled, ‘I want my money back,’ over and over again and he got louder. I grabbed two of my boys and told them to take him over near the bushes and out of the way a bit, just hang back. The Mad Magazine kid was bad for business, so with him out of the way the punters kept punting.

I marched over there and grabbed him by his shirt and dragged him out of sight, then I told him in my most threatening voice, ‘I’ll give you $5 and that’s it, if you continue with this shit you won’t get a cent and I’ll punch the fuck out of you. Your choice.’

He took the money and left. The key to the lesson I learned was that the threat of violence and a little bit of cash is very effective when it comes to negotiation. Gambling is an amazing way to make fast money. I have never seen anything like that day and it was only a coin toss board, imagine a casino. With a business that involves cash money and illegality you have to be ready and willing to go to extreme lengths to get what you want. But the most important lesson: be quick on your feet and even quicker to act.