Two For The Money (part three)

As Brandon is putting his clubs in the trunk, Toni comes out of her house and hails him. He wants to know where she’s going, she tells him she’s off to work. He takes her by the hand, compliments her on her appearance and marches her towards his car. ‘Nice ride,’ Toni remarks. I can’t believe she hasn’t seen his car before, considering her and Walter seem to be Brandon’s only friends. He brags about the personalised number plates (‘900 K-I-N-G,’ if you’re a latecomer) as if they’re something to be proud of, rather than the stupidest thing anyone has ever had emblazoned on their vehicle. She gets in, Walter looks on jealously from the office window. No one likes a long commute so you have to admire the way Walter has set up his business in the building right next door to his residence.

Brandon drives Toni to work like a maniac. He’s still pissed off that Walter a) told him to get knotted when he asked for a raise and/or b) paid for a pretty girl to sleep with him without telling Brandon, who thought he had charmed her into the sack until she disabused him of that overly optimistic notion. Or perhaps Brandon couldn’t care less about such matters and is simply trying to impress Toni. ‘You feel that?’ he asks three times, in a steadily rising pitch. Toni wants him to slow down but he refuses to comply: ‘This car was made to go fast.’ He gets a cigar out, tells her to ‘loosen up’ and asks: ‘When you’re not at the salon or running Julia to play dates or keeping Walter in line, which I know is a full-time job, what do you do for you?’ She goes speeding manically around the streets of New York with one of her husband’s idiot employees by the looks of things. ‘I stay busy,’ she responds and tells him he’s got a turn coming up. Why is he driving her to work anyway? She must have her own car, what with Walter’s wedge and all the ‘running Julia to play dates’ to be done, and, unless Brandon is planning on coming back to pick her up again later on, she’s going to end up marooned at work with no easy way to get home. Just thought it was worth mentioning. ‘That’s not what I asked,’ Brandon shouts annoyingly, taking the corner like a ‘Wacky Races’ competitor. ‘What do you do for you, for Toni?’ ‘I was a junkie, Brandon, okay?’ she says. I don’t think he wanted to know that either but we have quickly learned that Walter and Toni love to share. ‘So every day I get up and I gotta wonder ‘Is this the day? Is this it? Is this the day I slip? End up back on the street?’ Just keeping it all on track. That’s what I do for me.’ Brandon’s cigar doesn’t appear to be lit but he keeps putting it to his mouth anyway. In the space of half a day he’s metamorphosed into a complete twit. Rather than praise Toni for the way she’s turned her life around, he remarks: ‘Well that’s not living, Toni. That is not living. That is maintaining. That’s cashing in. That is not living.’ A sweet, happy daughter, a marriage and a successful business seemingly aren’t enough for this chump. What the hell does that mean?’ says Toni, then asks if we’re ‘talking perfection here’. Brandon says no and sagely pronounces that ‘nobody’s perfect’. How would you follow up that comment, if you were trying to be the biggest dickhead possible. You could mull it over for hours and I still doubt you could top this beauty: ‘Oh, except for me. Last weekend going 14 and 0, huh?’ Toni, used to dealing with preening alpha males, laughs indulgently, and thanks ‘John’ for the ride as they pull up by the salon.

Walter’s office, a few days later. Walter and Brandon listen to the results coming in. Brandon gets up, ‘I’m gonna go work out.’ ‘No, you’re not,’ says Walter. ‘There’s half a dozen games left. I want you to watch every second of every minute of every one of them. All right, so sit down.’

It’s later on now but our pair of punting prima donnas are still watching American football together. The commentator says something derogatory about Oakland and Walter says ‘Bye-bye’ and switches off the TV. ‘You know how you go three and eleven don’t you?’ Walter asks Brandon, who has dit6ched his cigar and does not look too happy. Clearly, he knows how to go three and eleven, having presumably just done exactly that, but I think Walter’s going to tell him anyway. ‘You go three and eleven when you make Sunday’s picks on Tuesday. ’Cause it rained in Cincinnati on Saturday, (and) two starting quarterbacks never got to play. That’s how you go three and eleven.’ Well, you’re the boss Walter, why didn’t you either ‘put the tips on ice’ as you said you would earlier and force Brandon to revise them later on, or just change some of the more outlandish ones yourself? To only pick three winners out of 14 in a sport where the possibility of a draw is not really in play is, to be honest, unrealistically bad. There must have been some obvious clangers in there. Brandon indulges in a quick spot of straw-clutching: ‘We still got Monday night and the parlay.’ ‘F*** Monday night and f*** the parlay. This isn’t about that. This is about me, isn’t it? It’s about the commission thing.’ Brandon looks very awkward and says he doesn’t know. Savvy businessman Walter decides he should reward Brandon for a feat of tipping which a two-year-old could have bettered. ‘Listen, I’m gonna bump you. Ten percent. Okay? You earned it.’ Brandon is rocking back and forward in his chair nervously, and Walter doesn’t really relax him by adding: ‘This is dangerous territory we’re getting into.’ However, he’s going to give him the rise anyway and wants to know about Monday night. Having lost a fortune following Brandon’s terrible Sunday picks, everybody is apparently going to ‘double down’ on whatever he pulls out of his ass for Monday night. ‘Monday night’s fine,’ says Brandon. ‘You bet your mother’s house on it?’ ‘I don’t bet, Walter.’ However, Brandon assures Walter he is happy with his selection. Walt wants more: ‘On your mother’s house or not?’ ‘With my mother in it.’

Brandon watches the Monday night game in a bar. ‘Another Monday night thriller comes down to the final seconds,’ says the commentator. Brandon looks on as the Carolina return man fumbles a punt and Cleveland recover the ball. Judging by the way a half-smoked stoogie falls out of his mouth, the pained cry of ‘f***’ he emits and the anguished look on his face, that’s not good news for Brandon and his followers. His mobile rings, it’s Walter. Very dramatic, but what has to be said right away about this disastrous turn of events that can’t wait for the morning? Maybe Walter wants to get an early jump on Brandon’s picks for next week?

This reversal of fortune has convinced Brandon to become the hardest worker bee in the hive. We see him buying a stack of sports newspapers and having phone conversations about esoteric American footballing matters. For some unfathomable reason it seems he is now being chauffeured around, and we see a minion hold the back door of the car open for him.

In his office, Brandon pesters a contact (‘Larry’) for information about whether an injury victim will be playing at the weekend. ‘It’s raining, it’s snowing. Can his knee hold up in that?’ Larry reports that ‘the doctor cleared him’. ‘Will the doc let him play?’ barks Brandon. Presumably he will, what else does ‘clearing him’ mean? Perhaps he’s only cleared him to hand out the sports drinks at half-time. ‘Yes, he is a gamer, thank you,’ says Brandon. ‘I can read between the lines, you got it.’ I can’t read between the lines. F*** knows if this character’s going to play or not.

We are treated to a bit of American football action and then arrive at a golf driving range at night time, where Brandon is hitting some balls. ‘Hell of a swing,’ says a just-arriving Walter. ‘Southie told me where I could find you.’ Brandon wanted to ‘clear (his) head’. He asks how they got on. Walter confirms that Brandon hasn’t already seen the results. Walt’s general demeanour suggests that Brandon did not make a spectacular return to form. ‘Highest sales volume ever,’ says Walter. Of course! After some hopeless tipster costs you a packet, the first thing you do is call back in search of a few more tasty nuggets. ‘I think we kicked ass,’ says a confident Brandon, clearly not an expert in body language. He’s pounding golf balls at a very fast pace while this chat goes on. ‘It was amazing,’ says Walter, as if he is agreeing. A grinning Brandon tells him ‘last week was nothing’. ‘You’re right,’ says Walt. ‘It was nothing compared to what we lost today.’ Finally, he has Brandon’s full attention. B wants to know exactly how he did but Walter decides to paint him a little picture of office life beforehand: ‘Grown men crying on the phone, their wives screaming in the background. Three salespeople quit. Couldn’t take the pressure.’ Brandon is bent over, aghast at his monumental incompetence. ‘F***,’ he says, but simply swearing is no longer enough to earn Walter’s amity. ‘You lose ten out of twelve, ‘f***’ doesn’t quite cover it,’ he points out. Again, I think that set of results is terrible almost to the point of impossibility, especially after last week, but I suppose it’s forgivable, in the name of adding a bit of dramatic heft. Walter thinks ‘holy f*****g s***’ or ‘Jesus f****** Christ’ would sum up their situation more adroitly. Brandon puts his golf club away and intimates he’s heard enough. Walter agrees. ‘What’s left to say, except maybe, we keep the phone number, only we switch it over to a f*****g suicide hotline.’ Brandon walks off and Walter shouts, ‘Tomorrow morning, Brandon (we don’t hear much about that John Anthony character these days, do we?). Bright and early, we start all over again.’ Walter refuses to lose faith in his tipping find but if I were him I’d be round Jerry’s at this very moment, with a pre-paid Alexandria in tow.

Brandon cycles around a park. A thug appears from nowhere and barges him off his bike. It’s Benny, Mr Novian’s personal thug. ‘Mr Novian wants to see you,’ he explains, dragging Brandon off. ‘Tell him to call me,’ Brandon wheezes, as the thug manhandles him. No need though, Novian himself hoves into view. ‘I didn’t recognise you without the suit John,’ he remarks. Good job Benny has a better memory for faces or the two of them could have been hanging around all day. ‘This is my time off,’ splutters Brandon, strangely taking the remark at face value instead of as the pointless prelude to a tirade of abuse that it so obviously was. ‘If you wanna talk, make an appointment,’ he adds, though with Benny’s arm around his throat, he is not really negotiating from a position of strength. ‘Or shall I call you Brandon?’ Novian wanders. Not having expected a response to his weak opening line, he ploughs on with his prepared speech. ‘Someone costs you thirty million, you do research, right?’ Brandon now looks terrified as Novian boasts about how he knows all about him, ‘where you live, where you’re from, where your family lives. Hey, your mother, there’s a sweet lady, man. I just come from Vegas. Dealt me three blackjacks in a row, she’s a good woman.’ Brandon tries to attack Novian but Benny restrains him. Novian continues to ponder some of life’s eternal verities: ‘Where’s the cocky motherf***** who came to my house?’ To be fair, it’s easier to be a cocky motherf***** when you’re not lying in mud with Benny’s arm around your throat. ‘Where’s John? What happened to John?’ Brandon suggests Novian should ‘use somebody else’ if he’s not happy with the picks. Benny lifts Brandon to his feet and Novian marches over. ‘I (have) just come for an apology. That’s it. Just look me in the eye and say you’re sorry.’ Brandon does so, but Novian isn’t satisfied. Brandon tries again but an angry Novian tells him he’s ‘not even close’. Benny hauls Brandon down to the ground again. ‘I’m gonna get my satisfaction, God damn it,’ says Novian, not as willing to admit defeat as the Rolling Stones. He gets out a gun and points it at Brandon’s head. Brandon apologises repeatedly. ‘It was a bad f****** weekend man.’ ‘Well, let’s make it a fun day,’ says Novian, proceeding to put his gun away, before urinating all over Brandon. It’s fair to say life in New York’s been something of a roller-coaster ride for the B-man.

We’re on the set of ‘Sports Advisers’ (‘Some businesses piss all over their competitors, but our clients piss on us!’). Jerry wants a word with Walter. ‘I think that I should lead off tonight,’ he says. ‘I got some really strong stuff, man.’ The show’s obviously fairly close to kicking off, but, seeing as the only people who could possibly be watching are extreme sado-masochists, I won’t complain about the way these idiots try to change the running order on the fly when they could have sorted this out hours ago. ‘Jerry, you got a good hole,’ Walter points out. ‘Stay in it.’ Jerry points out that he went ‘eight for twelve last week’. ‘I’m hot, I’m feeling it.’ Walter is unimpressed. ‘You had one good weekend, don’t get pushy.’ Jel objects to being written off as a one-hit wonder. ‘Sykes System revolutionised this industry, man.’ He shows Walter an advert featuring John Anthony. ‘Am I wood (?). Where’s my f*****g ad?’ We all know that Walter doesn’t have the longest fuse and he duly rips the advert from Jerry’s hands and tells him to ‘take a hike’. Jerry is baffled. ‘You’re fired, you’re gone,’ Walter explains. ‘I’m not fired,’ says a laughing Jerry. ‘You need me more than ever.’ Walter gently intimates that he’s not entirely convinced that that is, in fact, the case: ‘Get out of here, you cut-rate parasite.’ I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Walter’s treatment of Jerry is unrealistically appalling. If Walter thinks John Anthony is his top man then more power to his elbow, but he’s gone out of his way to rub Jerry’s nose in it, and resorts to cheap insults when Jerry bridles, or attempts to have a reasoned debate. Jerry tries again, ‘In six years, my worst weekend was never as bad as any of this guy’s last three weeks (we see Brandon looking on from the camera area).’ Walter again tells Jerry he’s out, Jerry wants to know what Walter is doing. I’ve vaguely tried to give Walter the benefit of the doubt before but he loses me for good now by making pained noises and shouting, so everyone within earshot can hear: ‘Am I doing something wrong here? Am I not communicating, is that it?’ He wanders out towards the cameras, where technical types and other hangers-on lurk. ‘You all know what I just did. (To Jerry) I fired you!’ Take careful note of this, all you bosses around the world. If you are ever in the unfortunate position of having to let someone go, and they express disbelief and try to get you to change your mind, don’t even think about offering them any sympathy. Instead, simply hurl abuse at them in front of the rest of the workforce. Yes, we can all agree that Jerry was being a bit juvenile about John Anthony’s preferential treatment but, let’s face it, all the evidence suggests that he’s a solid pro, whereas JA’s a no-hoper who fluked a few good weeks. Wouldn’t you be hacked off? Jerry, stupidly, keeps trying to reason with this buffoon. ‘Come on, this is me, all right? I’ve been here for you. I’m consistent and you know it. The other guys, f*** ’em. They come, they go. I’m the guy.’ ‘No, they don’t. Not him,’ says Walter, pointing at our hero. ‘That’s true talent. Get it? You can’t see it, I can’t explain it to you, that’s why you’re fired.’ I can’t be bothered to rip all that nonsense to shreds. Jerry implores Walt to ‘think about what (he’s) doing’ but Walt’s on a roll. ‘You couldn’t pick your nose without a f*****g computer,’ he says. That’s pretty specious, Walter. Given the chance to talk to someone rational, Jerry would no doubt point out that, over the years, his computer program has been a more accurate forecaster of sports results than human intuition, hence his reliance on it for his selections, with it’s nose-picking qualities simply an added bonus. Walter doesn’t give him time for a rebuttal though, adding: ‘You’re small Jerry. You belong in a can.’ ‘You’ve lost it,’ Jerry observes. Walt again points to John ‘Two winners out of twelve’ Anthony. ‘You don’t touch him. Now why don’t you have some self-respect and leave?’ Jerry is lost for words but eventually storms off, telling Walter he’s ‘out of (his) f*****g mind’. ‘Maybe I am,’ Walter concurs.

Brandon strolls over to Walter. ‘Asshole,’ says Walter, referring, naturally, to Jerry. ‘He doesn’t realise I’m trying to build an empire around you.’ I think he did realise that Walt, hence his displeasure. ‘I hope you do,’ he adds. Poor old Walter, he doesn’t realise that the man he’s anointed as head of his new empire was last spotted being urinated on in the park. Brandon doesn’t have much to say for himself but ambles towards his seat while Walter tells everyone to get back to work. And … we cut away before we get the chance to see how on earth Walt and the wallies explain away last weekend’s fiasco to their single-digit audience.

Brandon is in bed. His phone rings but he ignores it, without even seeing who it is. It’s Alexandria! No, sadly, it’s Walter. Someone knocks on his door and he peers through the peephole. ‘Hey, Toni, this is not a good time.’ She says she is cognisant of that but needs to speak to him about something ‘important’. ‘Not right now,’ he says. ‘Brandon, you have to … You have to go,’ says Toni. Brandon, who seems to be ailing, murmurs, ‘No, I gotta get back on track.’ ‘That won’t matter,’ says Toni. ‘You could win a hundred games in a row and it won’t be enough.’ Toni is clearly dealing in hypotheticals here, the B-man is lucky if he wins one in a row. ‘He will ride you into the ground,’ she adds. She’s trying to protect Brandon from Walter? I can see where she’s coming from but I thought she would be telling him to get lost before his ineptitude costs her husband his business.

Brandon sits in his office in a suit. The phone rings, he answers it. ‘I’m wiped out John,’ says a distressed voice. It’s Amir, he’s calling from a pay-phone. ‘My business, my house, my credit, everything,’ he adds. Brandon assures him it’s all going to be swell. ‘We’re gonna get back on track this weekend.’ ‘Still you talk like this,’ says Amir in accusatory fashion. ‘Who the f*** are you? Like this is some kind of game. You ruined me! I was betting a few thousand a Sunday when I called you but you pushed me, every call, all the time, with your talk. I lost three hundred and eighty thousand this weekend. I was going to get married. I had a life!’ Amir starts crying. You’ve got to sympathise with the old boy but last time we saw him he was living large. I know it’s so very easy to say but why didn’t he scale back a bit when he got well in front? And also, just because some smug tipster tells you to up your stakes to dangerous levels, that doesn’t mean you actually have to. Tell him to get stuffed and bet with money you can afford to lose. Okay, kids! Brandon doesn’t have much to say for himself, which Amir notices too. ‘No more money to squeeze so you shut up,’ he says. It would be funny (and not a little ironic) if his money ran out halfway through his rant at Brandon but this is a serious scene so we can’t have any of that nonsense. ‘How do you f****** live with yourself?’ Amir enquires. He hangs up, Brandon looks pensive.

Brandon works out. I think he’s lifting weights in his suit! He has a Eureka moment and dashes towards Walter’s office, yelling excitedly. ‘I know what the problem is,’ he tells Walter, as he bursts in. The boss is with two men and a load of money. Brandon says he’ll come back but Walter says he’s fine to stay. ‘These guys are finished.’ They leave and Brandon wants to know who they were but Walter is more concerned about his inability to make contact with Brandon and proposes ‘a Bat light or something’ so Brandon knows when his ‘services’ are required. Brandon again asks who the two strangers were. ‘The Salvation Army,’ Walter replies. ‘How does someone go one for eight?’ Sounds like you-know-who is in typical mid-season form. Again, one for eight is beyond ludicrous. It’s the playoffs now, apparently, which are seeded, so if you simply pick the home team, you’re liable to get more picks right than not. ‘A f*****g monkey tossing darts could do better than that,’ says Walter. Brandon wants to know why Walter has so much money lying around but Walt will not be deterred from denigrating his latest calamitous tipping performance. ‘I got a plan,’ he says. ‘We take all your picks, we reverse everything. Like one of them ‘Twilight Zone’ episodes, where everything is opposite. You say black, we say white (we get it Walter).’ ‘How much is that?’ Brandon asks, referring to the dosh. ‘Peanuts,’ says Walter. ‘Two hundred and seventy-five thousand. That’s how desperate I am.’ Brandon wants to know what happened to the ‘two mill’ they won weeks ago. ‘Man, I was carrying twice that in red ink before you even showed up,’ says Walter. ‘Everything you see is smoke and mirrors. I got three mortgages on this house. What do you want to know? I’m gambling again!’ Brandon stares at him moodily. ‘Cover my losses, I just got a loan from a guy who works out of a bar on 106th and Broadway. Trouble with me is, I start betting you heavy after you went a hundred per cent and I rode you right into the f*****g toilet.’ The trouble with this development is that, the week after nailing every result, Brandon arrogantly worked out his tips in about two minutes, and Walter, correctly, criticised him for it. Now we’re supposed to believe that, after watching, and passing comment on, this massive display of hubris, he then ahead and lumped large on the tips anyway? Brandon has an evangelical look in his eye. ‘I’m gonna take care of all this s***,’ he promises. ‘I’m Brandon Lang, all right?’ He burbles on about why changing back to his old identity is the way forward: ‘I’m the kid you called in Las Vegas…I lost something in here…I gotta go back to being me…If I go back to being Brandon …’ ‘You can pick again,’ Walter finishes. He’s on board with the scheme and takes the blame himself, ‘My fault. I f****d with you. Only two games, two winners, two over-unders.’ I think he’s talking about the coming weekend. An insufferable pedant would wonder how eight games (16 teams) reduced the field to a pair of games (four teams) in a week but that’s not how I roll. Walter piles on a bit of pressure about how vital the weekend is, then suggests they get some food but Brandon wants to ‘do some homework’. They hug, they’re both optimistic about the coming weekend.

In his office, Brandon struggles to come up with his picks for the games while the salesmen twiddle their thumbs. Our man lifts weights, shouts things at himself and puts a football to his head. Walter and his team wait patiently in the outer office. For some inexplicable reason, the phone lines aren’t exactly burning up with punters desperate to know what John Anthony’s got for them, although maybe some people have done what Walt said and reversed the picks. They’ll have made a fortune and will be desperate for more. Brandon comes out of the office and gives Walter a piece of paper. ‘Brandon made these picks?’ Walter asks. ‘You’re looking at him,’ is the response. ‘New York and the under, Tennessee and the over,’ Walter announces. ‘Sell ’em hard.’ They’re professional sales people, how does he think they’re going to sell them?

It’s time for the big games and even Julia wants to watch. Walter, Brandon and company are watching the game on a bank of four TV screens, each showing the same pictures. If you want to watch different games, then four screens are obviously great but if only one game is one, wouldn’t you just have one TV on? What do I know, I yearn for the day when I have a bank of four TV screens. Walter tells Julia who to ‘root’ for. ‘We don’t want them, that’s Atlanta.’ Very implausible, this film. Atlanta a game away from the Super Bowl? Not likely. Last I heard their star quarterback was possibly on his way to the slammer. Walter wants New York to win ‘and New York has gotta win by more than five points. Only you gotta root for a low score, okay? Because both teams together have to make less than 42 points, total.’ I’m sure I’ve seen the logistics of a plot point explained to the audience in a more maladroit fashion than a father blatantly stating them to his daughter, who could hardly care less and is likely to skitter off in a few minutes anyway, but I can’t remember when. Still not sure we, I mean, er, Julia, knows what’s what, the writer, I mean, er Walter, says, ‘So it’s New York in under 42 points.’ Julia nods agreeably. Brandon is looking tense.

New York scores a touchdown to ‘take the early lead’, prompting screams of delight from the beer-swilling gathering at Sports Advisers HQ. Chuck is there by the way. I think this film would have been better with more Chuck, and Julia, and Jerry. And less of Brandon, Walter and Toni.

Second quarter, it’s 10-0 New York, but Atlanta scores to make it 10-7. Julia shakes her head in disbelief. I was totally wrong, she’s clearly a huge American football fan. ‘Cong’ (?) throws a touchdown to ‘Simpson’ and New York go 17-7 up.

We skip forward again. Commentator: ‘New York just seconds away for maybe their third trip to the big game.’ The dangerous Simpson catches yet another touchdown for New York. ‘Hello, Super Forty!’ the commentator exults, trying to get round the fact that use of the phrase Super Bowl has obviously been prohibited. That makes it 24-14 and New York have got it in the bag, prompting happy scenes. ‘The boy is back, first of two, baby,’ Reggie says to a still-nervous looking Brandon. But wait, Atlanta are throwing a long bomb on the final play for the hell of it, and a touchdown would get them within five points and take the total over 42, wrecking both Brandon’s tips without altering the result. ‘Knock it down, knock it down,’ says Chuck, so happy to get an audible line he decides to repeat it. Commentator: ‘A wall of blue shirts up there around Jesse Sanchez. It is tipped in the air, it’s still loose, it is bouncing all around. And Peterson comes down with it. He’s at the 20, across the ten. Mackey dives at his ankles to keep him out of the end zone. Well, we end on a meaningless touchdown. Of course, I guess, unless you live in Las Vegas.’ This all plays out to a background of frenzied yelling from Walter’s gang but it’s no good, a freak play has wrecked the party atmosphere. Walter and Brandon look appropriately horrified.

Another commentator informs us that Kansas City caned Tennessee 33-13 in the other match, so Brandon’s definitely got the result wrong, although if the line was 45 or under he’s at least not gone zero for four. Only Walter and Brandon are left in the office. ‘I’m finished Walter,’ says Brandon. ‘Oh that’s great to hear,’ says Walter. ‘Thank God I haven’t alienated my other reliable tipster. Oh s***, wait a minute.’ He doesn’t really say that. ‘I don’t eat, I’m not sleeping,’ Brandon moans. ‘You got a little insomnia, a little indigestion, you’re gonna quit?’ says Walter. That, plus the fact he couldn’t tip the winner of a walkover. ‘What use is John Anthony gonna be to you now anyway?’ Brandon perceptively asks though, as I may have mentioned a few million times, perfect weekend or not, I think most punters would have deserted John Anthony by now anyway, or been forced to by the bankruptcy courts. Walter won’t ‘listen to this defeatist b******t’. ‘They know you went 80 per cent for half a season,’ he points out. ‘They know, and they’re gonna remember as soon as you win a game.’ He’s right. Brandon does at least have the law of averages on his side for ‘Super Forty’. ‘Then we go into March Madness, baseball,’ Walter adds. ‘Next year this time, this won’t even be a memory.’ Brandon wants to know ‘who said anything about next year, Walter?’ ‘You made a career choice buddy, and I bankrolled it,’ says Walt, lighting up a cigarette.

Toni arrives, indicates her displeasure at his smoking, and he tosses it away. ‘Let him go,’ she advises. ‘Of course you stick up for him,’ says Walter. If he seriously thinks his wife wants to get it on with Brandon, then why has he been mentoring the lad? ‘Meaning what?’ asks Toni in resigned fashion. ‘Meaning whose side are you on?’ ‘I didn’t realise I had to choose, Walter.’ Walter turns to Brandon. ‘You’re a champion,’ he informs him, cheerfully flying in the face of public opinion. ‘Champion goes down 86 times, he’s up on the 87th. I’m not gonna let you stay down, no way. Because this is not about you, or you (Toni). Or me. It’s about your gift. Your gift transcends all this s**t. Your gift is cosmic. It’s metaphysic. It’s eternal. It is God! Besides, we have a contract.’ ‘B******t,’ is Brandon’s response. ‘Walter, you can’t own someone,’ Toni points out. ‘Who owns him? I created the greatest sports tout this country’s ever seen. I hooked him up with every major client. I built a f*****g television show around him. I took out full-page ads. I introduced him to the major clients of the world (you’ve said that one Walt, and, considering that they ended up peeing on him, Brandon may not view it as a massive favour). I did that. I hooked you up with everybody. You think you’re gonna walk out that door, take that with you, leave me here holding the f*****g sack? B******t! (To Toni) I don’t even know why I’m talking to you about this s***. What the hell has this got to do with you? You know this is between me and him. What are you doing up in this office? What are you doing here? Get out of here!’ He really is a pleasant fellow. ‘Don’t talk to her like that Walter,’ says Brandon. ‘It’s between me and you.’ ‘Are you telling me how to talk to my wife?’ Walter wonders. ‘You shut your f*****g toilet when I’m talking to her.’ Walter has turned this into a very ugly scene. Toni begs Brandon to leave. He makes to do so but ends up hanging around by the door while Toni gives Walter hell. ‘Listen to me you son of a b****. Don’t you ever talk to me like that, ever.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ says Walter, calming down a shade. Brandon takes his leave.