The Bookmakers (9 page)

Herman looked closely and saw that Tommy was finally ready for a serious conversation. “That will be enough,” he told the midget in a suave, well-modulated tone. “Unless,” he said to Russo, “you want to continue?”

“Fuck,” mumbled Tommy through bleeding lips. His chest was heaving as he fell to the floor, retching on his white Berberweave carpet. Afterbirth watched impassively, bouncing on his fat toes while Herman, porkpie hat still perched on his massive round head, clucked sympathetically.

“Would you like a glass of water?” he asked. “Afterbirth, give Mr. Russo some water, please.”

“Piss on him, you mean?”

“No, just regular tap water. Unless there’s some Perrier in the refrigerator. Do you have Perrier?”

“Fuck,” Tommy groaned. He felt like he had a broken rib.

“I guess not,” said Herman Reggie. “Well, if you change your mind, let me know. In the meantime, let’s talk business. You owe me some money.”

“There was no reason to do this,” said Tommy resentfully. He waved at his apartment, where fifty thousand dollars’ worth of interior decoration lay in ruins. “You know I’d have come up with it.”

“Probably,” Herman agreed softly, “but I’m trying to make a point. I want you to see that I’m an enigmatic man. For example, you don’t know how old I am—you probably couldn’t guess within a decade. You don’t know if Reggie is my real name. For
that matter, you don’t know what ethnic group I hail from. That’s very rare in my profession.”

“Who the fuck cares,” said Tommy, cautiously regaining his attitude.

“Ah, you’d be surprised,” said Herman. “In the movies, for example, bookies always have an ethnic identity. Italians, no offense, are brutal. Jews are devious, Puerto Ricans are violent and so on.”

“Yeah, so they use stereotypes in the movies, so what?”

“Let’s take someone like you. You gamble, and if you come up short, you decide who to pay and who to stall, or maybe even stiff. Obviously you don’t know most of the bookies personally; probably you’ve just spoken to them on the phone. Maybe you only know their names.”

“So?” asked Tommy, fingering a painful lump on the side of his head, just below the scalp line.

“So you decide how to deal with a man based on ethnic stereotypes. But my clients don’t know what to expect from me. What would you say I am? What nationality?”

“Who knows? A Polak, maybe?” said Russo, lulled into speculation by Reggie’s conversational tone.

“Not at all.” The huge bookmaker laughed. “There isn’t a drop of Polish blood in my veins. Not that I’d be ashamed if there was, but I’m an American, plain and simple, and in this country, especially in my profession, that helps make me an enigma. Herman Reggie, Enigmatic American Bookmaker. It has a ring, don’t you agree?”

“I guess,” said Russo. His head was pounding but he was willing to go on talking as long as the alternative was Afterbirth.

“In other words, I’m a good citizen,” said Reggie. “I don’t discriminate. Anyone can bet with me, anyone can work for me—Italians, Mexicans, Irish, Jews, Danes—it doesn’t matter a bit.”

“They ought to give you a brotherhood award,” said Tommy, massaging his ribs.

“No awards, thank you,” said Reggie. “Just what I’m owed.”

“I told you, I’ll get it,” said Tommy. “I’m working on a couple of things that will pay off next week.”

Reggie shook his head. “Not soon enough. I want the money today, right now. Or else.”

“Or else what?”

“Afterbirth,” said Herman Reggie. The tiny wrestler hopped across the room and delivered a powerful elbow to Russo’s abdomen, knocking the agent’s wind out and sending him to the carpet, retching again. Reggie waited calmly until Russo was able to sit up. Then, in a mild voice, he said, “Or else you are going to be beaten to death by a midget.”

Tommy took a deep breath and tried to regain his composure. “Look, Herman, this isn’t the way things work. I owe you, I don’t pay, you rough me up. I pay and you leave me alone. But you don’t kill somebody over a gambling debt; you can’t collect that way.”

“That’s logical,” said Reggie in a pleasant tone, “but my business doesn’t necessarily operate on logic. That’s why I’m an enigma, so that my customers won’t take me for granted. Sometimes I let a debt go on and on. Sometimes I collect the old-fashioned way. And sometimes I foreclose. You can never know when you bet with me. In fact, even I don’t always know.”

“You’re talking about murder,” said Tommy.

“Murder’s a bad word,” said Reggie. He turned to the midget who was peering out the window. “Cover your ears, Afterbirth,” he commanded. The little wrestler dutifully put his hands over his cauliflower ears as Reggie continued in a stage whisper. “I’ve had people killed over bad debts. I’ve burned down their houses with their children inside. I can’t even think of how many guys I’ve had maimed and crippled. Enigmatic’s not the same as weak.” He signaled to Afterbirth. “It’s okay, you can take your hands down now,” he said.

“You got any diet soda?” the midget asked. “Sprite, 7Up, something non-Cola?”

“In the refrigerator,” said Tommy dully, his mind racing. He didn’t really believe that Herman Reggie would kill him, but he didn’t doubt that he would come close. The word ringing in his mind was “maimed.”

“What can I do to make things right?” he asked.

“Like I say, pay up. If you don’t have the cash right now, think of something else. But I’m not leaving without settling. Are you, Afterbirth?”

The midget shook his head without lowering his eyes from Russo.

“What kind of something would you take?”

“Well, in most cases—I’m letting you in on a professional secret now—in most cases what I do is, I take a piece of a man’s business. I don’t suppose you’ve got anything I could use?”

Tommy thought it over. He had spoken to Kleinhouse earlier that day and the author wasn’t happy with Wolfowitz’s offer. Eventually he’d come around, but it would take a while. The Hollywood deal was going slowly, too; he probably wouldn’t see any money there until after the first of the year. At the moment he had only one sure thing.

“How about 10 percent of a new novel?” he asked.

“A new novel? Whose new novel?”

“Mack Green,” said Russo. “The author of
The Oriole Kid
.”

“Interesting proposition,” said Reggie. “How much would you say it was worth? In your professional opinion.”

“My cut of the publisher’s advance comes to seventy-five hundred, but you’d also own 10 percent of everything else—paperback, movie and television, world rights. If the book takes off, it could be worth a hell of a lot more than eighteen thou.”

“In other words, you want me to gamble,” said the bookie. “Green hasn’t had a bestseller in years. From what I hear, he’s a dog.”

“What, you’re handicapping authors now?”

“I follow everything,” said Reggie. “I was reading someplace
that information is the most important single advantage in business. It’s the reason why you’re sitting here bleeding and not the other way around.”

“Well, here’s some information,” said Russo. “Wolfowitz, the editor in chief at Gothic Books, happens to be one of Green’s best friends. He’s really behind the novel. And the book itself is a winner. Green’s got a great idea.”

“Tell me about it,” said Reggie, leaning against the door frame. “Tell me about the great idea.”

Talking quickly and, he hoped, convincingly, Russo explained the concept of
The Diary of a Dying Man
. He could see that Reggie was intrigued. “There’s just one problem,” said the bookie. “What if Green really kills himself and doesn’t finish the book? Then I’m out the money.”

“I’ve known Mack for years, he’s not the type. This is strictly fiction. Whattya say? It’s a gamble but, hey, you’re a gambler.”

“No, you’re a gambler, I’m a financier,” Reggie corrected him gently. “But I won’t deny that I’m attracted. I’ve never owned a piece of an author before. All right, I’ll take him. Draw up the paper—today—and I’ll send Afterbirth by for it.”

Russo breathed a sigh of relief. “I don’t want Mack to know about this,” he said.

“I won’t tell if you don’t,” said Reggie. “Unless you give me a reason to.”

“Okay, I’ll have the papers ready by five,” said Tommy.

“Good. Now that that’s finished, I have another topic I want to discuss with you. I was wondering if you know someone at the Vatican, somebody on the inside.”

“No,” said Tommy, surprised. “Why?”

“The pope’s not getting any younger,” said Reggie. “A man with reliable information could make a lot of money when the time comes to elect a new one.”

“Sorry,” said Tommy tightly.

“You disapprove. Ah well, I can understand that, I suppose. Considering that you were once in the Church.”

“I’m still in the Church, I’m just not a priest anymore.”

“Whatever,” said Reggie airly. “A man’s religion is his private business, that’s the American way. But if you do happen to hear something, I’d appreciate knowing who you like for pope. It would be worth money. In the meantime, we’ll stick to the business at hand. Mack Green’s contract makes us quits. If it isn’t ready by five, Afterbirth will beat you up until you die.
Capiche
?”

“Yeah,” said Tommy sourly, “
capiche
.”

“Good,” said Herman. “In that case, I’ll be running along. You go on handling Green like before if you want to. Just make sure I get what’s coming to me.”

“Thanks for the soda, Father,” said Afterbirth, moving to the door behind the massive Reggie.

“You’re welcome,” said Tommy. “Drop in anytime.”

“No need for sarcasm,” said Reggie. He opened the door, paused briefly and then turned to Tommy. “When I said ‘
capiche
’ before? That doesn’t mean I’m Italian. It’s a common word, something anyone might say. You knew that, right?”

“Right,” said Tommy. “I knew that.”

“Good,” said Reggie with his most enigmatic expression. “I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

Northwest Flight 108 landed in Detroit’s Metro Airport just past noon, and Mack emerged from the gangway carrying a blue gym bag and a copy of
Rolling Stone
. He hadn’t been in the airport for years, but it looked pretty much the same as it had when he left for New York, junior auto executives rushing to make flight connections and gleaming new American cars on display in the main hall. He ducked into the newsstand and inspected the book rack. There was a full selection of favorite son Elmore Leonard and, predictably, no Mack Green. Not even
The Oriole Kid
in paperback. As far as the public was concerned, he was a dead author.

At the Hertz counter, a young woman with dyed blond hair and a slight overbite handed him the keys to a late model LeBaron, preordered and charged to his Visa.

“Want a map?” she asked pertly.

“What makes you think I need one?”

“You look like a New Yorker.”

“How can you tell?”

“In this job you get to know where people are from. You meet a lot of interesting types.”

Mack ignored the opening. “Matter of fact, I’m from Oriole. I grew up there.”

“No offense, but for Oriole you don’t need a map, you need a bulletproof vest.”

Mack smiled. In his early days in New York he had often entertained the crowd at the Flying Tiger with tales of his gritty hometown. But in truth, Oriole didn’t scare him. During his long absence it had taken on a legendary quality; he no more feared its residents than he did his own characters.

“It can’t be any more dangerous than Walter T. Horton,” he said. The woman’s puzzled expression reminded him that he was no longer on the Upper West Side. “It’s sort of a writer’s joke,” he explained.

A keen look came over the woman’s face. “I knew you were probably a writer or something like that,” she said, extravagantly pleased with her powers of observation. “Are you famous? Have I seen any of your books?”

“You might have,” said Mack, looking around conspiratorially and lowering his voice. “I’m Elmore Leonard.”

“Your driver’s license says Mack Green.”

“I’m traveling incognito,” Mack whispered, picking up the keys. “Keep it to yourself.”

Mack claimed his luggage, found the black LeBaron in the Hertz lot and headed down I-94. He was out of the habit of driving—in New York he didn’t own a car—and he tooled down the highway feeling as luxuriously free as a sixteen-year-old. He fiddled with the radio, found a Motown oldies station that fit his mood and began singing along with the Temptations, “You could have been anything that you wanted to and I can te-el, the way you do the things you do.”

There was no familiar scenery along the highway, nothing particularly evocative, just fast-food restaurants, unremarkable housing developments and billboards advertising cheap motels. Mack headed north on I–94, until he turned off the freeway and saw a familiar sign:
WELCOME TO ORIOLE, THE LITTLE GIANT; POP
. 81,570.

The population hadn’t changed much in Mack’s absence, but from the looks of the east side the town had gone from scruffy to ramshackle. He knew all about the collapse of the auto industry, but he was still unprepared for the sheer physical decline it had wrought. Many of the tiny, dirty-white shingle houses he recalled from his boyhood now stood vacant and cannibalized. Others had broken-down porches and overgrown lawns where unkempt kids played among the weeds and debris.