Lay the Favorite by Beth Raymer Read Free Book Online Page B

spread breakdowns, matchup reports, and reminders of the type of surface on which each game would be played. Dink purchased these materials from the Gambler’s Book Shop, downtown. The Book Shop was stocked with information on how to beat any casino or gambling system ever devised. It also carried novels like
Sex, Lies, and Video Poker
, and do-it-yourself divorce kits.
    Plopped on top of Dink’s workbook was a brown paper lunch sack from which he pulled out ninety thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills. He tossed the rubber-banded brick to Tony, who stuffed it into his pockets. A quick discussion of a few games that piqued Dink’s interest and Tony was off.
    Between my two phones, I had sixty bookmakers programmed tospeed dial. Beneath the speed dial cover plate was a list of bookmakers’ offices, each with a different code name and password. I had spent plenty of hours becoming acquainted with the telephones. It was important to be quick on them and to know which bookmaker booked which sport, what time they opened, closed, and what their maximum limits were. One of the bookmakers on my list was Texas Toast, a farmer in south Texas who was also a poker player. A notoriously slow speaker, he took twenty minutes to give a rundown of his day’s odds. Dink always assigned him to his new clerks.
    Robbie J picked up his receiver and punched a speed dial button with the eraser of his pencil. I picked up mine.
    “Yep,” Texas Toast answered.
    “Hi. Uh, nine seven six popcorn. Can I get a rundown?”
    There was a long silence. In the background, I thought I heard a cow moo.
    “My Gawd, popcorn, you sound like a child. Here we go …. N … B … A. Golden State … four … and … a hook. Eighty … eight. Bucks … six … and … a hook. Ninety … two.”
    I wondered what a hook was. Too shy to ask, I pretended to fill in the blank boxes of my rundown sheet and then called the next bookmaker on my list.
    An 800 number and a man with a Caribbean accent answered:
    “Sports. Dis is Bush.”
    “GJ nine seven two Dinky,” I said. “Can I get a rundown?”
    “Of course, Ms. Dinky. Starting with College Football.
Jee-or-jee-uh, Boo-dog
, ten and a half …”
    Robbie J held a receiver to each ear.
    He spoke into one phone: “Gimme the Bulls first half, over oh one minus the oh nine for two dimes.”
    Then the other: “I’ll take the Heat over the eighty-nine flat for a dime.”
    In between confirming one bet and making another, he slid a three-ply ticket from the pile in front of him and jotted down the name of the office with whom he bet, the bet itself, and theamount he bet to win. With the motion of someone throwing a Frisbee, he tossed his tickets one by one to Dink. Over the table the tickets flew, their top and bottom pages fluttering like moth wings. Two thousand, five thousand, twelve thousand dollars’ worth of bets soared toward Dink. In one quick motion, Dink snatched the tickets out of midair as though they were pesky bugs.
    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