He got caught up in a dangerous but exhilarating spiral. If he won, he raised the stakes of the next bet in order to win more. If he lost, he raised the stakes to recover the loss. The spiral became a maelstrom that eventually sucked him under.

Bill Bandy looked more like a tax accountant than one’s idea of a bookie. He was a slightly built man who probably had weighed no more on the day he died than on the day he graduated high school. He had thinning brown hair, a small face with a pointed chin, and a sharp nose. His pinched nostrils and pale blue eyes waged a constant war with airborne allergens. His hands were as soft and white as a woman’s, and one got the sense they would feel moist if touched.

No one would have pegged him for a mobster. Yet that was exactly what he was. It was rumored that, back in St. Louis, before he’d been relocated to Dallas, he had poisoned an uncle who had double-crossed him. Griff never knew if that was fact or fiction.

Bandy worked for Vista, the syndicate’s dummy corporation that ostensibly ran a tin-mining operation somewhere in South America. The actual location and other details were vague. Vista’s real enterprises were high-stakes gambling, money laundering, and, Griff suspected, drug trafficking.

Vista’s miners in the Las Colinas high-rise wore designer suits and diamond-studded Rolexes. They packed heat even when they went to the men’s room. They had bodyguards with automatic pistols and cars with bulletproof windows.

You did not fuck with them.

That was what Bill Bandy had told Griff over a plate of chicken enchiladas one night at his favorite Mexican restaurant. Griff was midway into his fourth season with the Cowboys. Bandy had invited him to dinner to discuss business, specifically the repayment of his gambling debt, which was now three hundred thousand and change.

“You don’t fuck with these guys, Griff. If it was me, I’d extend you some more credit. Hell, you make millions. I know you’ll be good for the money in a few months. But these guys?” He blotted his dripping nose with a damp white handkerchief. “There’s no charity in their hearts. Believe me.”

Griff dunked a tortilla chip into the salsa and munched it noisily. He took a sip of frozen margarita and winked at the starstruck teenage girls staring at him from the next table. “What are they going to do? Send some guy with hairy knuckles to break both my legs?”

“You think this is funny?”

“I think you’re about to panic when panic isn’t called for. They compound the interest every week, making me a profit center for them. So what’s their problem?”

“They want their money.”

Finally Bandy’s funereal tone captured Griff’s attention. No longer nervous or fidgety, Bandy’s pale gaze was rock steady. Even his nose had dried up temporarily. Griff thought maybe the fable of his poisoning an elderly uncle was true.

Maintaining that cold expression, he continued. “Be glad they sent me as the messenger, or you might not be starting on Sunday, or any Sunday for the remainder of the season. Make no mistake, they can inflict serious injury on you, Griff. They will.”

“It wouldn’t make sense for them to injure me. If I can’t play, they’ll never get their money.”

The argument didn’t make a dent in Bandy’s resolute expression. Griff pushed aside his plate and sighed with disgust that he had to deal with this now. The team was facing the Falcons on Sunday in Atlanta. The Cowboys were favored, but not by much. It wasn’t going to be a cakewalk by any stretch. He should have been psyching himself up for a tough game, studying the playbook, not pandering to gangsters.

“Okay. Give me a few days,” he told Bandy. “I’ll liquidate something. A car. My condo in Florida. Something. What’s the minimum amount that would temporarily satisfy them? Two hundred thousand? That’s more than half what I owe them. Would that buy me some grace?”

Bandy dabbed his leaking eyes with a corner of his handkerchief. “There may be another way.”

“To buy me time?”

“To cancel the debt.”

Griff gaped at him as if he’d said that he could have a week on a desert island with every Playmate of the Month for the past year, that they were all nymphomaniacs with the hots for him, and that no clothes were allowed.

Bandy asked, “Are you willing to meet with them? Discuss options?”

“Where and what time?”

The “them” Bandy had referred to were three men, who welcomed Griff into Vista’s opulent offices with hearty handshakes and unlimited hospitality. What would you like to drink? Help yourself to the tray of sandwiches there. I highly recommend the beef tenderloin with the horseradish sauce. How about a massage after the meeting? We’ve got a girl on staff who’ll give you a massage with a happy ending. Wink, wink. If you get my meaning. Which Griff did.

You’d never know by the reception they gave him that he owed them over a quarter million dollars and that they were making threats against his person if he didn’t pay this debt immediately.

The only native Texan was tall, trim, darkly tanned, with large and very white teeth. He was an avid golfer who talked loudly, lewdly, and nonstop. It was he who placed his arm across Griff’s shoulders and told him about the masseuse with the magic hands and mouth. Larry was the guy’s name.

Martin had a swarthy, Mediterranean look. He was obese. He didn’t breathe, he wheezed like an off-key bagpipe, and looked like he could go into cardiac arrest at any moment if only his heart could work up the energy.

The third, Bennett, was quiet and unobtrusive. Balding and fair skinned, he sat apart, contributing little but studying Griff with the unblinking, lashless stare of something scaly and venomous.

After the initial greetings, they got down to business. The terms of their proposal were simple: Throw the Atlanta game on Sunday, and his debt would disappear. That was not how they put it, but that was the bottom line.

Martin told him they didn’t expect him to try to lose. “Just don’t play up to your full potential.”

Larry winked again. “Give the fucking Falcons a fucking chance. That’s all.”

“And who knows,” Martin wheezed, “if the Falcons pull out a win, we could throw a little extra bonus your way, in addition to clearing your debt.” Gasp. “Right, Bennett?”

Bennett the Silent nodded his stiff comb-over.

Griff told them he’d think about it.

Fine, they said. He had till Sunday to make up his mind. And just to show their goodwill, they insisted that he avail himself of the massage with the girl, who capped off the fifty-minute rubdown with a blow job. Not that he couldn’t get head whenever he wanted it. There were always girls just dying to notch their bedposts with the Lone Star logo of the Dallas Cowboys. But this girl was exceptional.

On Sunday, while he was suiting up, during the singing of the national anthem, even as he took the field following the opening kickoff, he was still wrestling with his decision. He didn’t know what he would do until late in the fourth quarter, with a 10-10 score, when Dallas was deep in their own territory and it was third and twelve.

He took the snap. Dallas linemen went down like bowling pins under a Falcons blitz. His fastest, strongest running back got blocked by two linebackers. The third one was chugging toward Griff, smelling blood. Scrambling, looking for an open receiver, Griff realized how easy-and convincing-it would be to throw an interception.

Atlanta won 17 to 10.

The partnership was forged.