Chapter 4
Jay wrote a short phone message to Sophie: “Please come to
the beach house ASAP.” She replied immediately: “Can’t do, I am all caught up
in work. But I can meet you in town or at my apartment in my lunch break, say
two P.M.” “Two P.M. it is, then… Your place. See you there.”
In due time, Jay headed for the beach house as soon as he
was released by Tanaka that morning. He took a shower and ate a huge breakfast.
He felt somewhat refreshed afterwards. But he badly needed somebody to talk to.
He couldn’t think straight and didn’t trust his ability to sort his thoughts
out by himself. It was pretty shocking stuff he had to go through… Jay turned
to Sophie as the only person whose counsel and aid he trusted. And she deserved
to be warned and know about the danger directed against her.
On the way to Sophie, Jay wandered if he should alert the Meuniers. He decided against. Tanaka didn’t seem to hold a grudge against them. He just wanted to get back at Jay. His beef was entirely with Jay. And, unfortunately, Sophie, although she came into equation only as a means through which pressure could be applied on Jay.
Jay reached Sophie’s Nice apartment and pushed the buzzer. Even
before the doorbell ring stopped, Sophie already opened the door. “I was
expecting you,” said the young woman. “You’re right on time.”
“I like being punctual,” boasted Jay. Truth was that he was
in a hurry to get to her and share with someone his incredible and unpleasant
adventure.
He told her abruptly:
“I’ve been knocked-out
and abducted by Tanaka’s men. I woke up all tied up and with a sack on my head.
Tanaka explained he identified me as being the bracelet’s thief and proposed a quid pro quo: at his signal, I must
determine the termination of a football match. A high-profile match, the
Community Shield game. Tanaka would issue his signal if his multimillion-dollar
bet is about to fail.”
“What?! It’s unbelievable… Le salaud! Did you tell him
the bracelet was Richard’s by right? We ought to sue the bastard.”
“He doesn’t care whose bracelet was previously. He is up for
revenge and is taking me for channeling his anger on. I’m his punching bag now
and I’m about to receive quite a beating…”
“Damn Tanaka. Could he have taken the same path any respectable
mobster took and bribe a referee? Or hook up with some players who fixed games?
Of course, he couldn’t pay the players in the Community Shield. But he should
have picked a lesser game to bet on, most games had the odd for a draw above 3.”
“You seem to now a lot about football bets; strangely,” Jay
taunted Sophie.
“My former boyfriend used to bet a lot. Is this kind of bet
a smart idea?”
“Not at all. But maybe he is under certain constraints we
don’t know about. He should have bribed a referee to show a red card in a minor
game and bet on the red card. The odd is better than 3 and the risks are close
to zero. Odds are offered for all kind of stuff other than victory, draw or
defeat, that is 1, X or 2. People bet on cards shown, reds or yellows, added
time, corner kicks and so on. Even on the number and approximate time of
substitutions. In fact, just recently in Turkey there was a huge investigation
which concluded that a large number of referees were themselves betting on all
sorts of matches, even on events that depended exclusively on them.”
Jay was referring to the fact that the Turkish Football Federation
has suspended 149 referees and assistant referees, the bans ranging from 8 to
12 months, after an investigation found hundreds of professional match
officials in the country had betting accounts. The five-year probe had found 371
of 571 match officials have betting accounts, with 152 of those actively
gambling in 2025. While some had only bet once, 42 had bet on more than 1,000
football matches. One official was found to have placed 18,227 bets. Not all
bets were placed on matches they refereed in, but they were still forbidden to
place bets.
But it was not all about the referees. The players and
coaches also did their part. In 2025, an extensive FBI investigation identified
a current and former NBA player and one coach in alleged fixed-game betting
scandals.
“Such fixing requires several successive bets, but are way
more secure than what Tanaka has in mind. But they can only be implemented on
lesser matches and the stakes can only be much smaller. If you need to do a one
hit score, you can place stakes of several million dollars on the biggest
games, otherwise it’s very conspicuous. A big match attracts a lot of liquidity
and a million dollars here and there wouldn’t stick out.”
“Perhaps he didn’t think necessarily of placing a safe bet,”
said Sophie. “Like you said, he could have concocted a better scheme, free of
the toil and trouble that might go into this one. Tanaka thought primarily to
punish you, to torment you. He wants to get even at you and score big in
gambling. There is a trace of psycho in staking and risking all that money in
something in which you are the guinea pig running the wheel in vain.”
“He still might not be a psychopath,” said Jay musingly. It
just may be that such a devious scheme originated in his long affiliation with
the organized crime. Such people often develop a false sense of honor. Always playing
by some misguided rules can distort their perception about society and the
world to the point that they act like psychos but not out of pleasure or instinct
but out of habit and conformity to the norms of their environment.”
“But how is he going to place such a huge bet without raising
suspicion? I guess someone would notice. The bet would stick out like a sore
thumb… Why does he take such risks?”
“There’s the main peril for every fixed bet. But here, actually,
the placing of the bet is rather cunningly designed,” admitted Jay. “He divided
the sum between tens or hundreds of smaller stakes to be placed all along the
Asian gambling markets. The commissions of the various brokers must be eating a
lot of money, but the safety and anonymity of the punter is guaranteed.”
“What’s that game, the Community Shield you said?”
“It’s a match played in England between the reigning
champions and the Cup’s winner. It’s held in August, before the new season
starts. We have two weeks until then.”
“Should we warn Henri?” inquired Sophie. “He might be too low
on the ladder and escape Tanaka’s ire, but still, we should tell him”.
“Henri gave us up. He was forced, of course.”
“I don’t like this. At all.” Sophie was furious. “OK, Henri
sang like a canary, but he still should have warned us somehow.”
“Well, he didn’t,” said Jay. “What’s the use of brooding
over what he should have done? In a way, I understand Henri. Tanaka is not a
man to make an enemy of.”
A surprised Sophie looks attentively at Jay: “You kind of
sound like you’re going to cede also in front of the Japanese… Am I wrong?”
“I have no choice but to accept his proposition.”
“Can I be of any assistance? I want to lend a hand,” offered
Sophie.
“We must search online for FIFA regulations imposing
termination of matches before full time. Now, that’s a lawyer’s work...”
“Will do,” said Sophie. “I’ll apply all the lawyering I can,
trust me.”
She went to her desk, opened her laptop and started researching
on the Internet the laws of football to find out how a game can be declared abandoned.
She linked to the site of the Fédération Française de Football, fff.fr
(great domain name, thought Sophie), and began browsing. She figured that she better
found the rules in French, easier for her to read and comprehend, and once the
rules understood she would verify them in English to see if they are the same.
She looked for the “regles du jeu”, rules of the
game, and discovered a lot of regulations, anything but the actual playing of
the game. After a lot of sample reading here and there, she came across le Reglement
des championnats de national 1 et 2, from which she inferred that the
federation dealt mainly with amateur levels of French football, the minor leagues,
not useful, and that the interruptions mentioned were only caused by impracticable
pitches and precipitations.
The sensible thing to do was to directly search the UEFA (Union
of European Football Associations) and the English Football Association (the FA)
sites, and perhaps Google her problem and examine the results. It was a massive
task and she couldn’t do anything but get cracking.
