The Bookmakers by Zev Chafets Read Free Book Online Page A

without envy or resentment. Until Louise.
    “I think Stealth’s in love,” said Mack, looking at the stunned expression on his friend’s face. Wolfowitz blushed deeply but said nothing; he didn’t trust his voice.
    “Well, that was quick.” Louise laughed. “I can’t wait to see what happens next.”
    From that night on, Artie Wolfowitz divided his energies and wiles between promoting Mack and pursuing Louise Frank. He tolerated her capricious independence and her infidelities, sent her exotic flowers and expensive jewelry, praised her writing and humbly obeyed her commands (a new wardrobe, a different haircut, replacing Artie with Arthur). He also bought a still-unfinished book of her short stories for fifteen thousand dollars. Luckily for Wolfowitz, Floutie was impressed with her Radcliffe prose and authorized the deal, but even if he hadn’t, Wolfowitz was prepared to pay the advance out of his own savings.
    On her twenty-fifth birthday, they went to dinner at the Rainbow Room. After three cocktails, Wolfowitz reached into his pocket and with a trembling hand produced her birthday gift—a diamond engagement ring.
    “If I take this, it means I have to marry you, doesn’t it?” she said lightly.
    “Don’t tease me,” he said. “I can’t take it anymore.”
    “All right then,” she said, “here are my terms. I want a kid right away and a nanny to take care of him so I can go on writing.And I don’t want you to have any fantasies about the little woman waiting for you to come home at night. That’s not me. If I marry you, I intend to have an independent career and an independent personal life. Understood?”
    Wolfowitz nodded, so overwhelmed with emotion that he couldn’t speak; so overwhelmed, in fact, that for the first time in his life he failed to grasp exactly what he was being told.
    A less love-struck, less cynical man would have wondered why a woman as beautiful and desirable as Louise Frank would agree to marry him. Wolfowitz attributed it to his growing professional importance, his persistence and Louise’s recent, almost obsessive desire for a child.
    In this he was partly correct; Louise Frank was almost two months pregnant when she accepted his proposal. Of the possible fathers—a movie critic married to her cousin, a South American novelist named, she was pretty sure, Ramone, her tennis coach, her tennis coach’s friend, who had been visiting from Denver, and Artie—Wolfowitz was the only one who would conceivably marry her.
    The ceremony was held at City Hall, with Mack acting as best man. Afterward they repaired to the Tiger for a raucous celebration hosted by Otto. Wolfowitz, drunk on champagne, played “Mind Over Matter” on the jukebox, draped his arm over Mack’s shoulder and pulled him close. “I love you, I just want you to know that,” he slurred. “I love Louise and I love you. You’re my family.” He leaned over and kissed Mack wetly on the cheek.
    “Yeah, right.” Mack grinned, embarrassed by the uncharacteristic show of affection.
    “No, I mean it, Mack, I really mean it. I love you. Honest to God, I really mean it. Do you believe me that I mean it?”
    “Sure, I love you too, Stealth,” he said.
    “Naw, you don’t love anybody,” said Wolfowitz with drunken insight. “Everybody loves you but you don’t love a goddamned soul.”

Six
    Not long after Wolfowitz’s marriage, Mack met Tomas Russo. Their first encounter took place in the confessional at St. Frederick’s, where Tommy was serving as junior priest and all-purpose workhorse under Francis X. Dorsey, the laziest pastor in New York. Tommy got all the parish scut work, but the job he hated most was hearing confessions. It infuriated him that shrinks and talk-show hosts got paid big money for listening to the same kind of sordid crap he had to hear for free.
    And so Tommy Russo had been in a foul mood when Mack Green slipped into the booth and said, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” Russo,