The Bookmakers

by Zev Chafets

  “100 percent kosher,” said Packer. “I guarantee you.”

  The old man shrugged. “Okay, then we got a minyan.” He and the others tossed fringed shawls over their shoulders and began winding little leather straps around their arms. Someone gave Mack a set of straps as well, but he just stood there, bewildered.

  “You’re sure he’s Jewish?” asked the old man again.

  “Yeah, but he’s Reformed,” said Buddy. “He doesn’t know how to put on tefillin. I’ll give him a hand.” He winked and began winding the leather straps around Mack’s left arm.

  The old men began chanting in odd, high-pitched Hebrew tones. Packer handed Mack a prayer book and winked again. “It’ll be over in about twenty minutes,” he whispered. “Just turn the pages backward and mumble.”

  When the prayers ended, the old men unwrapped themselves. One produced a bottle of cheap scotch and ten filmy shot glasses. They filled the glasses, yelled a Hebrew word that Mack assumed was a toast and tossed back the whiskey.

  “These old guys are so out of it they don’t even know there’s a drinking age in America,” Buddy whispered, draining his glass and taking a refill. “Drink up, Macky. It’s on the Jews.”

  “Where’d you learn to do all that stuff?” asked Mack on the way back from the little synagogue. It was 7:30 in the morning and, for the first time in his life, he was buzzed.

  “This Jewish kid I know taught me,” said Packer. “They need ten guys to make the prayers official.”

  “Not ten Jewish guys?”

  Packer shrugged. “They’re not too picky,” he said. “Anyway, I thought you’d enjoy starting off the day with a cocktail.”

  “You drove all the way over to the north side at this hour for a couple of shots of whiskey?”

  “Yeah. And ten bucks each,” said Packer, peeling off a bill and handing it to Mack.

  That morning had been Mack’s initiation into the world of Buddy Packer and his disciples: Brian Lifton, a clumsy boy Packer called “Ba-ba” because his father, a former high school football star, considered him the black sheep of the family; a dark-skinned, heavily muscled black kid named Roy Ray Johnson, who wore a beret, carried bongo drums and went around reciting Vachel Lindsay’s poem “The Congo” as if it were his; and Chuck Mayes, a dirty-blond hillbilly from Arkansas with a movie star’s profile and an 85 IQ.

  Mack never became a full-fledged Gamer—he was too much a part of the school establishment for that. But he had a craving for bizarre people and rebellious acts that Packer, who had X-ray eyes for human weakness, had spotted. Buddy granted him honorary membership in the gang and allowed him to participate in some of their less-dangerous scams and pranks—walking out of restaurants without paying, stealing golf clubs from the Oriole Country Club, making booze and grass runs into the far reaches of the east side ghetto. Later, when the action escalated and Buddy began dealing drugs and carrying a pistol, he sometimes warned Mack to stay away. Mack interpreted this as a form of respect; it never occurred to him that Packer didn’t fully trust him. Even after he left Oriole for the University of Michigan and later for New York, Mack continued to think of himself as a Gamer, the way a staff officer in an elite combat unit might, in the course of time, come to remember himself as a genuine commando—

  Shaking twenty years of memories from his head, Mack found the address on Larimore and parked his LeBaron on the dimly lit side street in front of a grimy, two-story brick building. The scruffy neighborhood didn’t surprise him; he expected to find Buddy in an out-of-the-way, disreputable part of town.

  The sour stench of sweat and disinfectant hit Mack as soon as he opened the door, and it grew stronger as he climbed the concrete stairs to the second floor. Before he reached the top, he heard the sounds of grunting and leather on flesh and realized that Buddy Packer’s office was a fight gym.

  The place was dim and smoky, and it took Mack a few seconds to adjust to the weak light. The first thing he saw was the practice ring, where two lightweights danced around each other while a brawny, chocolate-colored man in a boating cap hollered, “Mess it up in there, y’all, mess it up.” Near the ring, a number of dark, shining bodies were punching heavy bags or skipping rope. Mack looked past them and saw Buddy Packer leaning against a wall.

  The first thing that struck Mack was Packer’s appearance. He had always been a weird-looking guy—six-foot six, at least, and not more than a hundred and fifty pounds, with wide, bony shoulders and a sunken chest. In the old days he had worn shades day and night, a cowboy hat indoors and out, and matching Ban-Lon-shirt-and-sock outfits. Now, although he was dressed in an expensively tailored dark suit, he looked even weirder. Strawlike brown hair, thin on top, hung over his collar, and round granny glasses of the type Green hadn’t seen since the sixties sat on his small, pinched nose. Only his slouch and the cynical expression on his thin lips looked the same. With a stab of disloyalty it occurred to Mack that his old hero looked like the kind of geek who assassinates presidents and rock stars.

  Packer saw Mack come in, but he didn’t so much as nod. He waited, leaning against the wall, until Mack came to him. They shook hands and Packer examined him with the blunt stare of a pawnbroker appraising a watch. “You look good, Macky. What you been up to?”

  “Oh, nothing special. A few books, a few laughs. Yourself?”

  “Little of this, little of that. These days I’m a fight manager. Ever hear of Irish Willie Torres? That’s him in the ring, over there.” He signaled with his eyes at a mocha-colored Latino with a shock of black wavy hair.

  “Can’t say I have,” said Green. “I don’t get to the fights much.”

  “Tough little dude,” said Packer. “He could be a main eventer with the right publicity—”

  Suddenly Mack reached out and grabbed Packer, pulling the tall, skinny man to him in a tight bear hug. “Goddamn, it’s good to see you, Packy.”

  Packer returned the hug for just a moment and then wiggled free. “Hey, be cool. This isn’t a fucking bathhouse.”

  Abashed, Mack let his gaze wander around the room. “Any of these guys good?” he asked finally.

  “Depends what you mean by good. Couple of them can take a punch. Irish Willie’s got a future. And Mario di Vinci’s a comer.”

  Mack looked more closely at the fighters; there wasn’t a single white kid in the room. “Mario di Vinci?”

  “That one over there,” said Packer, pointing to an ebony welterweight of seventeen or so who was skipping rope with awkward little leaps. “Hey, Mario, come over here and meet a big-time writer.”

  The boy put down his rope with evident relief, loped over to Mack, extended a sweaty hand and smiled. He was missing a front tooth.

  “Where you from, Mario?” Mack asked.

  “Rome, Italy,” said the kid with rehearsed alacrity. “My daddy’s an I-talian. My mama be from around here.”

  “Good kid,” said Packer, patting Mario on the ass and sending him back to his rope-skipping. “Like my own son. They’re all good kids.”

  “You fool anyone with this routine?”

  Packer ground his cigarette out with the heel of his shiny black boot. “Not trying to. The fight game today’s like pro wrestling. Nobody gives a shit if one colored boy beats the crap out of another colored boy. You got to give the fans somebody to root for. So I got Irish Willie, Mario, Boomboom Bernstein, Ivan Ivanovitch—practically the whole fucking UN. That way, when they fight, people say, ‘He’s a boogie, but he’s our boogie.’ ”

  “Why don’t you just get some real Italians or Irish or whatever?”

  “White kids can’t fight,” said Packer contemptuously. “Besides, quite a few of them have parents.”

  “So?”

  “So how can I be like a father to my boys if their real dads come around wanting to check the contracts? Look, this is bullshit. Let’s go someplace where we can get a drink.”

  “Sure. How about the Savoy?”

  “The Savoy? They closed that dive years ago.”r />
  “Too bad,” said Mack. “It was the only place I could beat the pinball.”

  “Yeah, by putting the machine on ashtrays.” Packer laughed. “There’s a place over on the north side called Stanley’s. They serve decent food.”

  Mack could still taste Joyce McClain’s fried chicken. “You eat, I’ll drink,” he said.

  “No sweat,” said Packer. “It’s good to see you, Macky. You’re right on time.”

  “On time for what?”

  “To help me get out of this shithole,” said Packer.

  “Oh, yeah? How do I do that?”

  Packer looked down at his old friend and gave him a dry smile. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m already working on it.”

  Thirteen

  After supper McClain went down to the basement and smoked a cigar. Then he joined Joyce in front of the TV in the living room, went out to the kitchen for a beer, came back and began rereading the sports section of The Oriole News and humming to himself. “What’s the matter?” Joyce asked.

  “Nothing,” McClain said. “What makes you think something’s the matter?”

  “All this jumping around and now you’re humming ‘It’s a Grand Old Flag.’ ”

  “I’m worried about Mack.”

  “Why, because he went out with his friend?”

  “Buddy Packer,” said McClain. “You know what he is.”

  “Mack’s a big boy,” said Joyce. “He’ll survive an evening with a Bad Influence.”

  “You can laugh if you want to,” said McClain, “but Mack’s in trouble. You can’t be a cop as long as I was and not sense it.”

  “Now you’re going to tell me about your po-lice ESP,” said Joyce.

  “Well, there happens to be such a thing,” said McClain. “Besides, you don’t need ESP to see something’s going on. I mean look, the guy hardly leaves the house—”

  “First you’re worried because he goes out and now—”

  “That’s not what I mean. How come he doesn’t want anybody to know he’s in town? Why doesn’t he call up any of his old buddies, have ’em come over for a drink? Speaking of which, this morning there was another empty Jack Daniels bottle in the trash.”

  “He told you he likes to drink. A lot of writers do.”

  “And what about girls?” asked McClain.

  “Girls?”

  “Women, then. There aren’t any. He hasn’t been in touch with any old flames—”

  “Old flames?” Joyce laughed.

  “You know what I mean. I know he’s not a faggot—”

  “Nice word,” said Joyce. “How in the world did I ever end up married to such a bigot?”

  “Okay, gay, whatever. I mean, he was married, and he talked about that Linda Birney the other night. Maybe he’s sterile, that could be the problem.”

  “Sterile? I think you mean impotent.”

  “Can’t get it up, whatever the term is. Or maybe it’s some kind of midlife crisis.”

  “Or maybe you just like butting into other people’s business. Seriously, John, I want you to get out of this boy’s face. There’s nothing the matter with Mack except that maybe he’s a little bit lonely—”

  “Ah, so you agree with me that something’s wrong?”

  “There’s no law against being lonely. You were, when we met. So was I. He’ll be fine, just leave him be.”

  “Yeah,” said McClain, “I guess. You wanna see Murder, She Wrote or can I dial?”

  “I don’t care,” said Joyce. “Watch whatever you want, long as you stop humming that damn song.”

  They sat in front of the TV in silence for a while and then McClain said, “I wonder what he’s writing?”

  “He told you, a book about coming back to Oriole.”

  “I mean about us.”

  “He said he’ll show it to you when it’s finished.”

  “I was just curious,” said McClain.

  “You’re never just anything,” Joyce said. “You’re always a whole lot of something. Don’t go getting worked up about this book. I know Mack and it’s going to be fine.”

  “You know Mack. Now who’s got the ESP?”

  “I don’t need ESP, I got CPCS,” said Joyce, taking her husband’s hand.

  “What the hell’s that?”

  “CPCS? Colored People’s Common Sense,” Joyce said.

  Stanley’s was a small steakhouse surrounded by a large parking lot full of late-model American gas-guzzlers. Its patrons were mostly beefy, red-faced businessmen in dark suits, accompanied by women young enough to be their secretaries. Dim red lanterns illuminated the booths, Barry Manilow filled the air and a sign over the cash register read: CASH ONLY. It was the sort of Mafia joint Mack had been in many times in New York, but never in Oriole.

  “Nice, huh?” said Packer, slipping the wide-bodied host a twenty for the privilege of sitting in the center of the room surrounded by loud drunks. “Owned by a couple of friends of mine.” He signaled for a waiter and asked for a tequila with lemon.

  “Double bourbon on the rocks,” said Mack, lighting a Winston.

  “Well, at least you haven’t turned into a health nut,” said Packer approvingly.

  “It’s a funny thing,” said Mack. “When we were kids we drank and smoked to seem older. Now I don’t quit because I don’t want to feel like I’m getting old.”

  “You were always coming up with fake philosophical shit like that,” said Packer.

  “Ah, so you do remember me? Back at the gym I thought you were having a hard time figuring out who I was.”

  “I remember,” said Packer. “I’ve thought about you over the years.”

  “Yeah, I noticed from all your calls and letters.”

  “You could have called yourself,” said Packer.

  “I didn’t know where you were,” said Mack. “You’re not in the phone book.”

  “Every fucking bill collector in Michigan finds me, I figured you’d be smart enough to get my number if you wanted it.”

  They sipped their drinks in silence. “You ever see any of the old crowd?” Mack asked after a while.

  “The old crowd? What crowd would that be, old bean?”

  “Ba-ba, Roy Ray, Mayes—the Gamers.”

  “They’re around,” said Packer indifferently. “Ba-ba’s a lawyer, J. Brian Lifton. He specializes in child abuse cases, if you can believe that.”

  “Where’s Mayes?”

  “Came back from ’Nam dumber than when he left. He was working as a security guard at the airport last I heard.”

  “What about Roy Ray?”

  “You mean his Holiness, Minister Malik.”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s what he calls himself these days, Abijamin Fucking Malik. He’s in New York, too; I’m surprised you haven’t run into him.”

  “Roy Ray is Abijamin Malik? He’s famous. Christ, my agent was bitching about some demonstration of his a few weeks ago.”

  “Your agent?” said Packer, arching an eyebrow and extending his pinky. “He any relation to your butler?”

  “No, seriously. Malik is Roy Ray? I’ve seen his picture in the paper but I never recognized him.”

  “He probably doesn’t even recognize himself. He’s got a beard these days, and a fucked-up looking African hat,” said Packer.

  “Put that in a novel, nobody’d believe it,” said Mack. “Roy Ray, militant minister.”

  “Minister my ass, he’s a con artist,” said Packer. “Doing good, too, I’ll say that for him.”

  “You ever see him?”

  “He’s in town once in a while, we get together. In private. He doesn’t like to be seen with white people. Says it’s bad for his image.”

  “So much for the Gamers,” said Mack wistfully. All these years he had imagined them together, under Buddy’s imperious leadership, the way they had been when he left.

  “What’d you think, I’d still be running around with my high school buddies, playing softball on the weekends? Life ain’t a Bea
ch Boys tune, Mack. Things change around here, just like in the big city.” Packer pushed up his jacket sleeve, revealing a tattooed blue snake slithering through a heart on his thin forearm. “Ever seen one of these?”

  “A tattoo? Yeah, I believe I have,” Mack said. “Matter of fact, I got the idea for my first novel from a guy with tattoos. Lot of guys who work in the kitchens of Greek restaurants have them, too.”

  “Well this one ain’t from Greektown, it’s from Jackson.”

  “Jackson? Prison?”

  Packer nodded and blew some smoke rings. “Yep.”

  “What were you doing in prison?”

  “Some bullshit arson thing,” said Packer.

  “I’m surprised you got a license to manage fighters, with a record,” Mack said.

  “I didn’t. Melvin Hudson, the guy in the boating hat, he’s my partner. He was a guard in Jackson. Tell me something, you got any serious money?”

  “What’s serious money?”

  “Say twenty-five thousand. For that you could buy a piece of one of my kids. You were always a sports fan. This would be like owning a big-league baseball team.”

  “No thanks,” said Mack, signaling the waiter for refills. “I hear the fights are fixed.”

  “That’s the whole point,” said Packer. “Well, fuck it, I was just being sociable.”

  Mack could tell that Packer was angry, but he decided to let it ride; twenty-five thousand dollars was too much to invest in nostalgia. “Tell me something,” he said. “Was it rough up there?”

  “Up where?”

  “In the joint.”

  “The joint? You sound like those fuckwits in high school who used to talk about ‘the Nam.’ Lemme tell you something, prison ain’t glamorous, no matter what Norman Mailer thinks.” He tossed down his tequila, wiped his thin lips with a napkin and grinned. “What’s the matter, Macky, you surprised I know who Norman Mailer is? I read some of his books. I even read a couple of yours. Just to kill time, you know?”

  “Mine and Mailer’s.”

  “Yeah,” said Packer. “His are better, but yours were okay, too. I liked the baseball one.”