Lay the Favorite

by Beth Raymer

  “Oh my God. I love sports betting!” he said. Adding, rather sweetly, “It’s my passion.”

  And I realized all those MASH fortune-telling games I’d played as a little girl were wrong. I wasn’t going to marry a banker, drive a Rolls-Royce, and live in a shack. I was going to spend the rest of my days with a middle-aged Jewish gambling addict from Long Island.

  Dave was so excited I could feel his knees bouncing beneath the table. I asked what he bet on.

  “Anything that moves,” he said.

  After more gambling talk, Dave asked if I would put him into an office. By doing so, I’d become his agent, which meant I’d give him ASAP’s phone number in Costa Rica, a password and credit line, and he’d be able to bet. This is common practice in the Internet age, since most bettors are wary of sending thousands of dollars to faceless bookies in third world countries.

  If I became his agent, I’d be responsible for making sure ASAP paid him when he won and he paid ASAP when he lost. In the event that Greenberg couldn’t pay, it was still my responsibility to make sure Bernard got paid. This was the risky part. There was always a chance I’d get stiffed and have to foot the bill. And I couldn’t complain to the cops about it since the whole thing was illegal. In return for taking the risk, though, I’d receive a twenty-five-percent kickback on his losses—not a bad way to supplement one’s income. Looking across the table at Greenberg’s big, stupid smile and his big, wiggling ears, I felt the allure of easy money.

  “I can get you an account,” I said and wrote the office number on the back of an ASAP business card. Bernard had passed them out the day we opened and I was happy to finally use one. It made me feel professional.

  “But what about the boxing program?” I said. “Did I get the job?”

  He took my card. “Eh, that thing’ll never get off the ground. I’ll never get enough money for advertising. I’d rather do this.” He kissed two of his fingers—the ones you use to touch a mezuzah—and turned them to me. His way of waving good-bye.

  That evening, after I’d set up Dave’s account and he’d made his first bet, Bernard called to congratulate me. “Where’d you find this guy?” he said. “He’s trying to win fifty bucks on the Jets and he’s willing to risk nine hundred to do it! He has the makings of a Very. Good. Customer.”

  Something was different, I noticed. The undertone of wrist-slitting depression in Bernard’s voice had vanished and that alone made me happy. It occurred to me that to hit rock bottom, adapt to it, and then crawl out of it was probably the most familiar situation Bernard knew. Setting him up with a sucker would be profitable for both of us and made me feel better about leaving him. Days later Greenberg called and referred three more customers. I happily took them on.

  Wind and sleet rattled the bedroom windows. Steam hissed and curled from the radiator. The sound of Jeremy’s electric toothbrush buzzed through the walls. I didn’t realize that when I vowed to leave the gambling world forever, forever meant two weeks.

  I was seeing life like a gambler again and domestic life had no thrill to it, no stakes. The bzzzzzzz of the toothbrush sounded like the drone of daily drudgery, of monogamy, madness, and death. By the time Jeremy settled into bed with his guitar and book of Jewish camp songs, I’d made up my mind.

  “I’m moving to Vegas,” I said. “Tomorrow.” I drew up the covers.

  I glanced at him for a reaction. Instead of showing anger or disapproval, he strummed. I’d always been grateful that Jeremy gave me the independence I required. But at that moment, a little domination would’ve gone a long way with me. I took his passivity for rejection.

  “If I go,” I said, “I won’t lose interest in you as quickly.”

  He looked at me as he though he saw only imperfection. “Jesus, Beth! You’re not a girlfriend, you’re a fucking flight risk! You come on so strong …”

  “Use I statements! And stop looking at me like I’m ugly.”

  “ … All you did in Curaçao and Costa Rica was tell me how much you missed me. And no sooner do we get into some kind of relationship than you run away. You’ve been here two weeks! I feel like a single father raising a little kid who has never been loved!”

  “Jeremy. I am not a little kid. I have a strong sense of self. I know when I’m bored.”

  But I wasn’t bored. Or maybe I was. I wasn’t sure. But I did know I was getting cold feet. Even if I knew how to make a living in New York—which I certainly didn’t, not without gambling—I wasn’t ready to live with Jeremy. I needed my own space, preferably in a hot climate with a swimming pool. I needed Vegas.

  Truth be told, Jeremy wasn’t ready to live with me, either. What we both wanted was simply to date, but my bouncing around made things chaotic. “Quit your job and come with me,” I said. “We can rent rooms a few blocks from each other.”

  “Do you not understand I’m trying to be a reporter here? I’m done hopping from experience to experience. I’ll visit, but I’m not moving to Las Vegas.”

  “Then will you be my pay and collector?” I asked. It was the part of my job Jeremy thought the most interesting. When we first met, he sometimes accompanied me on my drop-offs. I needed someone I could trust.

  “Will it hurt my chances, if I go into politics?” he said.

  “No. It’ll help. I like when politicians have diverse backgrounds.”

  He gave it more thought and then smiled.

  “I’m your boss now!” I straddled him.

  “You are not my boss.”

  “Yes I am. You’re my employee. You get a hundred bucks for every appointment. Save it for something special.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Like my own bail.”

  “We’re home!” I shouted as Otis and I ran up the steps of Dink’s house and into his den. Dink now conducted his gambling business from home, claiming he could no longer afford Dink Inc.’s overhead, though I think his decision to work from home had to do with the fact that he had grown frightened of going out into the world. Huddled in the cramped darkness of his corner desk, he held his jaw as though it were displaced and tugged at his wild, overgrown hair. “I had a good, long run,” he said regretfully. “But it’s over. My life is over.” He fidgeted his way through his symptoms: memory loss, bouts of vertigo, burps that tasted like rotten eggs, sticky urine, slimy teeth, an inability to digest anything but double cheeseburgers. Allergic to air and paper (though not money, he made that clear), he handed me a brochure of a bubble community for people who could no longer tolerate society. It showed porcelain trailers at the end of an isolated cul-de-sac. Dink was on the waiting list. It felt great to be back.

  Tulip, sun-kissed and svelte in a fitted “Got Gelt?” T-shirt, held both my hands and admired me as though I were a daughter she’d grown to be proud of. “He’s all yours,” she said.

  I sat beside Grant, the last employee standing. “I have customers,” I said, and explained how I met Dave Greenberg.

  “That’s unbelievable!” Dink said. “How do you meet someone for a job interview and end up being their agent? God must have a crush on you.”

  “Do you even know how to be an agent?” Grant sniped, obviously jealous.

  “Yes, I know how to be an agent.”

  “How much have they lost?” Dink asked.

  “They haven’t. They’ve been winning.”

  “They always win,” he said. “I’ve never had a square that didn’t beat me the first month.”

  Just as Dink predicted, my customers continued to win and the New York pay and collect circle worked without a glitch. From Ronkonkoma, Mikey the miserable limo driver drove bagfuls of money to Franky the Fireman, ASAP’s New Jersey/Manhattan chief associate. On Mondays, I reported to Franky how much my customers won and he gathered the money owed and hopped in his pickup to go meet Jeremy. On the corner of 140th and Convent Avenue, he’d hand over twenty, thirty grand, which Jeremy would then break down into individual packages. At random Starbucks around the city, Jeremy—the only face my customers would con
nect to the whole operation—pulled stuffed envelopes from his Manhattan Portage bag and paid out the winnings.

  Days before New Year’s, my customers finally went on a losing streak. They owed $25,000. My cut: $6,250. I had visions of gleefully blowing the cash like on that old game show where people tossed all kinds of crazy shit into their cart as they flew down the aisles of a fantasyland supermarket. I called Jeremy and begged him to come out for the spree.

  At the airport, I was so nervous and excited to see him that I hadn’t paid attention to the missed calls and messages on my cell phone. When I found a spot with good reception, I listened to them. Then I closed my eyes and wished I hadn’t.

  Hey Beth, it’s Dave; I wish you were pickin’ up. Listen, I got a very disturbing phone call. I was in trouble in the stock market years ago, I don’t know if I told you that, but I’m on probation. And, uh, my parole officer wants to talk to me about who I’ve been speaking to on my cell phone. He has all the numbers—you, the office, Jeremy. I have to go downtown at three o’clock. I’m scared as hell. Don’t call me on my cell. I’ll call you from a different phone. Good-bye.

  He’s lying, I thought, and called his cell immediately. There was no answer.

  Oil paintings of the King and Queen of Thailand hung over our heads and Jeremy sat beside me, merrily sipping a Thai iced tea. We were at Komol, the restaurant I worked at when I first moved to Vegas, sitting in the same front booth where Amy the masseuse had offered to put me in touch with Dink. That was four years ago. Jowtee, the invisible spirit who controlled the restaurant’s destiny, was still sitting at his table, set with noodle dishes and fresh-cut flowers. My ex-boyfriend was still waiting tables. He took our order.

  But what if Greenberg wasn’t lying? Staring at the untouched food on my plate, I felt the sting of dread work its way through my guts. I didn’t care what happened to me. But if Jeremy got arrested, he could be booked on charges of conspiracy to conduct illegal gambling business. People in his position certainly had. And God knows what would happen to Bernard. It was 2005 and the Department of Homeland Security was now cracking down on gamblers. Feeling shaky, I needed to rest my head on something. I leaned on Jeremy’s shoulder and repeatedly told him that I loved him.

  “I love you, too. This pad thai is amazing.”

  “Remember how I told you my customers lost?” I started.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I want you to listen to something.”

  I held my phone to his ear and played Dave’s message.

  “Jesus Christ, Beth!” He laid his fork in the bed of noodles.

  “Before you worry,” I said, “I’m pretty sure he’s lying.”

  “He’s not lying.”

  “I’m ninety-eight-percent sure he’s lying. He just doesn’t want to pay. Or he can’t pay. I mean, even if Dave has a parole officer, I doubt he’s asking him who his bookie in Costa Rica is.”

  Jeremy closed his eyes and spoke slowly. “Beth. If Dave Greenberg has a parole officer it seems entirely possible that he would want to know who his bookie in Costa Rica is and for Dave to cough up his contacts.”

  “I think you’re just feeling scared because you might go to jail.”

  “Look, if we need a lawyer, I’ll call my parents …”

  The thought of Jeremy explaining the situation to his mom and dad, board members of their synagogue and graduates of Wellesley and Oxford, respectively, sent me over the edge.

  “Jeremy, I swear to God, if you tell your parents about this I will never, ever talk to you again.”

  The hamsters ran inside their exercise balls, rolling around the carpet and bumping into walls. Grant picked one up and spun it on his pointer finger as though it were a basketball. “They probably bet more than they had and now they’re tryin’ to get their money together,” he said, passing my phone to Dink.

  “Grant!” Dink yelled. “Put Murray down or you’re fired.” Dink listened to the message. “I think he’s trying to stiff you,” he said. “He must think you’re stupid.”

  I fell back onto the couch. “Well, he’s right! I am stupid! I never got their home phone numbers and they’re unlisted. The only numbers I have are their cell phones and they’ve turned them off.”

  Grant laughed himself into a fit. Dink held a pocket mirror to his tongue and examined the fungus growing from it.

  “Grant, help me get a gun,” I said. “The only way I’m going to get this money is to go to New York and wait for Dave at his work. If I end up shooting him, I’ll say it was self-defense. I’ll say he was stalking me and I was scared. I’ll say he raped me.”

  “You don’t need a gun,” Grant said. “I’ll beat his ass. I’ve never been to New York. Let’s go next week. The Knicks are playing at home.”

  Dink raised his voice. “Nobody’s buying a gun and nobody’s going to New York.”

  “You don’t understand!” I yelled, my voice cracking with panic. “Bernard just had his fucking life ruined because someone stole from him. And in return for everything he’s done for me, I give him the biggest stiff package in history. If I don’t get him that money I can’t live with myself.”

  That evening I called Bernard and asked him to shut down my players’ accounts. It was something I’d been avoiding because it would let on that I was having problems. Bernard asked if everything was okay.

  “Everything’s okay …” I said. “But I’m going to need a little time.”

  “How much little time?”

  “No longer than three weeks.”

  “I have ya down for a little time, no longer than three weeks. Check?”

  “Check.”

  Grant, Jeremy, and Otis stretched out on the floor watching football, Dink played party poker, and I sat at the computer and started my investigation. From my interview with Dave and the e-mails and conversations that followed, I had a few clues to go on. I knew his wife’s name was Marcia and that they had a four-year-old son, Jacob, but I couldn’t remember where on Long Island they lived.

  There were hundreds of listings for Dave Greenberg, zero for a Marcia, and nothing about them on the Internet. I called all of the boxing gyms on Long Island and no one had ever worked with a Dave Greenberg. Seeing my growing frustration, Jeremy came to my rescue. As a reporter, he had access to a Web site used by law enforcement to track people down when only fragments of data were available.

  “I could get in a lot of trouble for doing this,” he said, typing in the ID and password needed. “It’s super-unethical.”

  “I won’t tell anybody. I promise.”

  Dave Greenberg+New York produced hundreds of addresses. Marcia Greenberg, New York, produced only five.

  “Massa-fucking-pequa!” I shouted. “That’s it!”

  Not only did it give me the Greenbergs’ address, but also it gave me the names of their neighbors, parents, and siblings. It told me what year Marcia (maiden name Edelstein) and Dave got married, the schools they’d attended, and how much they’d paid for their condo. It didn’t give me their phone number, but it did give me Marcia’s parents’ number. I stepped into the hallway.

  “Hello, Mrs. Edelstein?” I said. Putting on the most mature voice I could muster: “This is Becky Frompkin, Marcia’s friend from high school.”

  “Well, hellloooo, Becky dear.”

  In her shaky voice, Mrs. Edelstein recited her daughter’s phone number, double-checking to see I got every numeral right.

  As relieved as I was to finally have Dave’s number, it was hard for me to decide who had the upper hand. The information I had certainly helped, but I was still the one doing something illegal. If he really wanted to, Dave could blow the whistle. The cops would come for Jeremy and me, not him. If I came off too strong, Dave might blow, but if I came off as too soft, he wouldn’t take me seriously.

  Back in the den, I turned down the televisions.

  “Okay, I got his number.”

  “Gooood,” Dink said, as though talking to a child. “Now, call him and te
ll him you didn’t appreciate the parole officer don’t-call-me-I’ll-call-you bullshit. You don’t like people making a fool of you and if he pays by Friday no one else needs to know about any of this.”

  “What do I say when he asks how I got his phone number?”

  “Tell him the guy you owe the money to gave it to you.”

  “What if he says he doesn’t have the money?”

  “Tell him you’ll ruin his marriage.”

  This is the beauty of having a mentor.

  I wandered toward the safe and peaceful master bedroom where Tulip, in silk panties and bra, sat in a fan-back vanity chair. In the white glow of a light-therapy box, she plucked her eyebrows. I sat on the edge of the bed and asked that she made sure I stayed assertive.

  “Go for it, girlfriend,” she said.

  At the sound of Dave’s hello, I felt like a gun that’d spent its whole life between mattresses and now had the opportunity to fire.

  “Dave, it’s Beth.”

  Dead. Silence.

  “Bethy! Happy New Year! Listen, listen. Can I call you back in five minutes?”

  “I have the phone numbers of your in-laws, your boss, and your sister,” I said. “If you don’t call me back in five minutes I’m going to call every one of them and tell them about your gambling debt.”

  “I’m at home with my family,” he whispered. “Let me call you back from another phone, will you?”

  “Five minutes,” I said.

  “If I were you,” Tulip said, “I’d tack on a heavy aggravation fee for the way he’s fucking with you.”

  My phone rang.

  “Beth, listen, I’m calling from a pay phone …”

  “Dave, you owe me twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  “Way, way, wait. I owe how much? Whatever the other guys lost, whatever they’re not paying you, I’m not responsible.”

  “You turned me on to them, you guaranteed them, you probably told them that if worse came to worst they could take a shot at me. I’m holding you responsible.”

  “I’m not paying anyone’s debt. If you want I’ll give you their numbers.”