by Beth Raymer
I lost track of where I was on the rundown and hung up on Bush in midsentence.
“What’d he have on Morehead?” Dink asked me.
“Who?” I said.
“Morehead,” Dink repeated.
“I didn’t call Morehead,” I said.
“No, moron,” said Robbie J. “Morehead’s a football team.”
“Morehead’s a college,” Dink corrected.
“The office you just called, what did they have on Morehead?” Robbie J asked.
I looked down at the tiny boxes on my sheet. They were all blank.
“Forget it, we missed it.” Dink yelled. “Call Fort Knox. Fuck, we’re on the wrong side. Go! Go! Go!”
I didn’t have Fort Knox programmed to my speed dial so I picked up the phone and pretended to call a bookmaker just to make it appear as though I was doing something.
“Beth, you gotta say who you’re calling so no one else wastes their time calling the same office. Okay?” Dink said.
“Okay,” I said.
The computers beeped, along with the fax machine. One of the fourteen phones rang. I had no idea which one.
“So?” Robbie J snapped and I nearly jumped out of my seat. His hand gripped the receiver so hard his knuckles turned white. He was waiting on me to make a call. “Who are you on the phone with?”
“Uhm,” I said, and hung up.
I found the ringing phone. It was Tony, prepared with his rundown, calling from a men’s bathroom inside the Stardust casino. The Stardust was the preeminent Las Vegas sports book because it was the first sports book to post the day’s lines. For professionals like Dinky, these lines—calculated by handicappers but untested by the market—were pure potential. Any mistake, any miscalculation or oversight—maybe the line didn’t take into account the college quarterback who stayed up till two in the morning downing tequila shots—was begging for a smart bettor to take advantage of it.
Gamblers called these virginal lines the early lines and there wasn’t a wiseguy in the country who didn’t want to get down on them. To protect itself from getting hammered by the smart bettors, however, the Stardust managers limited the number of bets they took before they had a chance to adjust their lines. It was a first come, first served setup to bet the early lines and competition became so fierce that some gambling bosses paid homeless people to sleep in the Stardust sports book. The homeless player wasn’t making a bet, he was just staking claim to a position in line until ten to eight, when the regular runner moved in, slipped the bum twenty bucks, and took his place in the line. Eventually, in preparation for the next day’s odds, the homeless players began camping out on the sports book’s purple-and-green-flowered carpet at seven at night. The managers put an end to the situation by incorporating a lottery. Get here at a quarter to eight, guys, they told the runners, and draw a number from a hat.
“Gimme Dinky,” Tony said, and I handed Dink the phone.
The televisions cut to a breaking news story. With September 11 just a month behind us, news flashes and terror alerts had become commonplace. Still, we held our breath and looked to the TVs with apprehension. The anchorman reported that letters laced with anthrax had been discovered in Reno.
“Reno?” I said. “We better warn Louise.”
“I think Louise is safe at the sports book,” Dink said.
Close-up images of Osama bin Laden in his white turban appeared on the television. Another clip showed him walking along a mountainous brown-gray desert with an AK-47 hanging across his chest.
“Guy’s livin’ in a cave. That must be a real riot,” Robbie J said. He punched a skinny red straw into the foil of his protein-drink box.
“How much is the reward for capturing him?” I asked.
“Twenty-five million,” Robbie J said.
“Think of what we could do with that kind of money!” I said.
“I’d invest in the Yankees to win the World Series,” Dink said.
Bin Laden vanished from the TV screen and in his place appeared Las Vegans who claimed to have served some of the 9/11 hijackers during a trip they made to Vegas earlier that summer. A teenage employee at Hungry Howie’s said the hijackers ordered a pizza from him “with the works, minus the ham.” An Alamo Rent A Car employee explained that he had rented one of the hijackers a brand-new Chevy Malibu, complete with a Triple A discount. At the Olympic Garden, reporters interviewed strippers who had lap-danced for one of the hijackers. “Some big-man terrorist,” said a sarcastic brunette in a push-up bra. “He spent about twenty bucks for a quick dance and didn’t even tip.” When asked what the hijackers looked like, the girls quickly exclaimed, “Cheap!”
How does Sin City appear through the eyes of Islamists? Tonight at seven.
Louise called from a pay phone outside the Peppermill casino. Her voice shook, not with fear of anthrax, but with elderliness, and she began her rundown. “They have the Seattle Seahawks minus three …”
By lunchtime we were up thirty-three grand.
After a frenzied four-hour shift, we drove to the Red Rock country club to watch the afternoon games at a friend of Dink’s who was also a professional gambler. Along a brick driveway lined with Corvettes, Jaguars, and luxury SUVs, Dink parked his Altima. We walked beneath an outdoor chandelier, through a marble-floored foyer, up a wrought-iron spiral staircase, and onto the second floor, which overlooked the eighteen-hole Arnold Palmer–designed golf course. Opened French doors led to the friend’s office, commonly known as the Den of Equity.
Ten middle-aged men of all moods, sizes, and smells fraternized around the den, fiddling with their sports tickers and talking shop.
“You guys are gonna think I’m full of shit,” said a man with hair plugs, who seemed to be at the center of conversation. “But I met this girl. Redhead. Big tits, no kids …”
With just a few exceptions, these men had known each other since they were in their twenties. In New York, they had played in the same card rooms and were regulars at the track. They remembered each other’s first cars and first wives. They had watched each other go to prison for tax evasion, bookmaking, and race fixing. They’d seen each other flush at the final table at the World Series of Poker and so broke that they couldn’t pay their electric bill. Through the years, they had bet each other thousands of dollars on things as meaningless as whether or not the winner of the spelling bee would be wearing glasses and as consequential as the results of their prostate exams. When they felt that one gambler was in over his head with a girl who was spending fourteen thousand dollars a pop on pocketbooks, they held a gold-digger intervention.
Michael, the Den of Equity’s host, was a short, grumpy old man who looked like he’d just downed a glass of curdled milk. He was reputed to be a ruthless bettor, but he couldn’t manage to turn on any of his state-of-the-art appliances. He hired assistants to teach him how to use the mouse on his computer. When he couldn’t find the TV’s volume button, he asked friends to come over and help. His office, however, was so spectacular—the gambling books in the mahogany bookshelves, the valuable Brooklyn Dodgers paraphernalia, the four flat-screen televisions built into the wall cabinet—that the friends and assistants never left. Thus, the Den of Equity became the game-day hangout and Dink saw it as a great place to introduce me to his friends.
“Everyone!” Dink said, hoisting up his shorts. “Meet Beth, the newest Dink Inc. employee and Flip It aficionado.”
Falafel, an Israeli backgammon player, was the only one to say hello.
Noticing that the host was looking at me, I smiled.
“What?” he snapped.
Dink and I sat on a couch in the corner. “Your friends don’t like me,” I whispered over the noisy televisions.
“They like you,” Dink said, loudly. I shushed him.
“They like you,” he whispered. “But they barely tolerate women. I guess I kind of forgot that.”
Beautiful day in Wisconsin, the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens against the Green Bay Pack
ers. Hello everyone, what a great matchup we have for you today.
With no interest in the games, and feeling unwelcome, I stayed at Dink’s side and opened my mouth only to eat chocolate-covered strawberries when they came my way. When it came to sports, I enjoyed baseball the most and I had my favorite players—Pedro Martinez and Vladimir Guerrero. Before I met Dink, I had never watched a hockey game; now that I was beginning to understand the rules and becoming familiar with the players, I found the sport exciting. But I loathed football, an animosity that brewed at Florida State, where I had had classes with some of the players. During lectures, they’d blast their Walkmans and rap to themselves while popping zits on their shoulders. When I was a little girl, I always watched football on the couch with my dad. I’d had a crush on Jim McMahon and when he ran onto the field I’d hold up a homemade sign that read “I you Jim! Do the Super Bowl shuffle!” But Florida State and the obnoxious tomahawk chop, which stayed in my head for years, ruined the sport for me.
The host’s young Mexican wife, an ex–cocktail waitress from Binion’s, breezed through the room in a low-cut silk dress, looking as posh and polished as a movie star. A diamond-encrusted Star of David, a present from her husband when she converted to Judaism, fell into her cleavage. She offered the guests fresh-squeezed orange juice, toasted bagels and lox, and more chocolate hors d’oeuvres. She delivered a prepared plate to her husband, who sat behind his glazed desk. As lissomely as she entered, she departed. And once again, I was the only female in the room if you didn’t count sideline reporter Bonnie Bernstein.
And, let’s go down to Bonnie Bernstein. Bonnie?
The camera cut to Bonnie, standing on the sidelines, composed. A silver clip kept the wind from blowing her hair into her face. A quilted magenta coat protected her from the Green Bay chill. She brought the CBS microphone close to her mouth and began to speak.
Our host muted her commentary. “Cunt,” he spat.
Dink came to her rescue. “Hey, don’t be rude to Bonnie. She’s one of the tribe.”
“Cock! Sucker! I have too much on San Fran under. Anybody wanna piece of it?”
“I’ll take two dimes.”
“I’ll take three.”
“How do you have two dimes to bet on the game but you can’t pay me back the money I loaned you at Saratoga?”
“I got a joke for you guys. Two Muslims and a Jew are sittin’ next to each other on an airplane …”
On the TV below, players piled on top of each other.
He fumbles the ball and here comes the Ravens and … they … got it!
On the top TV, the Redskins prepared for kickoff.
“FUCK you, Schottenheimer, you inept FUCK,” Hair Plugs shouted. The camera cut to the coach pacing the sidelines and Hair Plugs lunged at him, the way high school bullies do when they want to make someone flinch. I thought he was going to spit at the screen. I had to look away.
“Baltimore’s shootin’ their load a little too early.”
“Niners’ defense is horrendous. This may be a very profitable day.”
“Can somebody mute Dierdorf? ‘An inopportune time to fumble.’ Is there ever an opportune time to fumble, jerk-off?”
“Fuck. I forgot my Xanax.”
On the divan sat a man so entranced by the game’s unfolding drama that he absentmindedly peeled psoriasis scabs from the back of his hand and popped them like movie candy into his mouth.
“Eating it’s not gonna make it go away,” Dink said, and then turned to me and asked, “Are you having a nice time?”
I nodded my head yes.
“You’re allowed to talk, you know.”
I shook my head no.
“You wanna piece?”
In addition to my salary, Dink gave me “pieces” of games we watched together outside of the office. It was an all-reward, no-risk situation. If he won, he’d give me two, three hundred dollars. To make it more fun for me, he said. He gave me my first piece of a game while we were in San Diego. Now, one week later, I was up eight hundred dollars for the week, in pieces.
I nodded yes.
“We need Falcons and under. Our root is for no one to score. But if someone must score, we want it to be the Falcons. We need the Redskin total to go over thirty-four in the first half, that’s a big one. We need Tennessee to get destroyed …”
Falafel was reprimanded for rooting too loudly for his three-hundred-dollar bet while his friend, the host, had five grand riding on the opposing team. This, Dink said, was one of the reasons he liked having me work for him. I didn’t gamble on sports, so if Dink needed one team, he could rest assured that I didn’t have a bet on the other side and was secretly rooting against him. That situation happened quite often with the guys in the office. It was one thing to like a certain team; it was another to root against your boss, who’s paying your salary.
“WHY IS THERE A RECEIVER ALONE IN THE END ZONE?”
Eyeballs bulged and faces reddened. Palms smacked the top of the coffee table. Teeth bit deep into knuckles. Hair Plugs took a knee. I smelled the first wave of body odor.
Touchdown! Washington.
I was confused. Was that good for Dink?
Dink read my mind. “That’s good for us,” he whispered.
We returned to Dink Inc. to bet on the later games. Field goals, foul shots, flip shots, and snaps pushed the afternoon into nighttime. Trying to remember who and what we needed on each event was exhausting. In the first half we rooted for a team to score a lot of points, and in the second half we rooted for them not to score. We rooted for a team to make a field goal and twenty minutes later we rooted for them to fumble. It was important for one team to win by 3 or 5, but definitely not 4.
“See these tickets,” Dink said. There were enough of them now to fill a shoebox. “This is what I’ve been talking about. These bets could be sold for something. Hopefully the gambling gods will be on my side, but I can go to sleep tonight knowing I have the best of it.”
My brain was mush. I didn’t have the energy to even feign interest. Dink noticed the sullen look on my face and assumed my spirits were low because I had yet to make a bet. To boost my morale, he allowed me the honor of making the day’s last wager.
“Okay, here. You’re gonna do this right now,” he said. “Call Top of the World and ask for game two twenty-four, Minnesota money line for one dime.”
“Come on, baby, you can do it,” Robbie J said.
I lifted my cheek off the table and reached sluggishly for the phone.
“Sports.”
“Hi, six four six Double D.”
“Go ’head, Double D.”
“Game two twenty-four, Milwaukee money line?”
“Game two twenty-four, I got Bucks minus the fifty-five, total at one twenty-one.”
“Okay,” I said. I slid a three-ply ticket from my own little pile. “I’ll take the fifty-five …”
“No, no, no, not take,” Dink said.
Oh, God. Enough already. My instinct was to hang up.
“Stay on the phone,” Dink instructed, in a hushed tone. “Milwaukee’s favored. You don’t take the favorite. You lay the favorite. You take the dog.”
“You there, Double D?”
“Yeah, hi. Actually, can I lay the fifty-five to win a dime?”
On the Don Best screen in front of me, the basketball game changed from minus 155 to minus 159. I realized Dinky’s opinion was so respected that when he or his crew bet money on a game, the office we bet with changed their odds. I thought that was cool as hell.
“You got it. Bucks money line risking fifteen-fifty to win a dime. Name and password for confirmation.”
“Six four six Double D.”
Robbie J blew me a kiss. My heart swelled with pride. In girly cursive, I wrote the bet neatly onto a ticket and tossed it to Dink. For the remainder of the evening, the three of us unwound. We pushed the boxes of leftover pizza to the side and stretched our legs over the banquet table. Otis slept at my feet, surrounded by empty
two-liter bottles of Coca-Cola. It was like a Norman Rockwell portrait of a family, but instead of bowed heads and palms in prayer, we rooted for the Bucks to hit a three.
CHAPTER FOUR
Going, Going, Gonif
It wasn’t that I had misrepresented myself to Dink on the afternoon of our interview. I had worked as a social worker. As the weeks passed, though, and Dink showed interest in the details of my past, I considered, for the first time in my adult life, whether it might be best just to tell someone the simple truth about what I had been up to for the past two years. Watching Dink try to make sense out of the disparate anecdotes I shared with him made me feel guilty. Whenever I met someone new, my tendency was to ask a lot of questions, many of them squeamishly personal. Dink was so candid. Whenever I asked him about the frustrations of gambling life or regrets he might have, or the particulars of his financial situation (How much were you making when you were my age? What was the most you ever lost in one year? One day?), he always answered with honesty and careful consideration. He was becoming a friend and deserved better.
I waited for an evening when we were alone in the office. Dink was seated at the head of the table, contemplating a racing form. Sitting in my chair, I tucked my legs under me and leaned my body over the table, toward him. I held myself up with my elbows.
“Yes, Ms. Raymer?” he said, eyes on page.
“Remember how I told you I was a social worker?” I started, trying to be nonchalant. But casualness was never my forte and over the next sixty seconds I hit every point on the emotional spectrum. Ambivalence to worry and back again. My face blushed, I laughed, went serious, broke a sweat, and then took a deep breath to regain my composure. I gauged Dink’s reaction, though I hadn’t told him a thing.
“I remember,” Dink said.