Tough Luck (2 page)

Finally, Mickey decided to put the bets in. It was only $138 and Angelo was probably good for it.

On Sunday, Mickey rooted for Angelo’s teams, but it didn’t help. Only one of Angelo’s teams won, and he now owed a total of $140.

Monday afternoon, Angelo came into the store while Charlie was on his lunch break, and there were no other customers around. He told Mickey a story about a friend of his, “another made guy,” but he didn’t mention anything about the bets. Then, when Mickey was checking out Angelo at the register, Angelo said, “Jesus, I almost forgot,” and he reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, and Mickey saw the handle of a black handgun sticking out. From behind the gun Angelo removed a folded-up piece of paper.

“I don’t care what the lines are,” Angelo said, handing the paper to Mickey, “just put this in for me, will ya, kid?”

Angelo left the store, lighting a cigarette like he didn’t have a worry in the world. Mickey looked at the sheet of paper:

20 TIMES FALCONS IF OVER
20 TIMES FALCONS
20 TIMES OVER

“Shit,” Mickey said.

Including the vig the new bets came to $330. If the bets lost, Angelo would be $470 in the hole.

Mickey couldn’t afford to lay out so much money—he only had about two thousand dollars in the bank, and that was for expenses while he went to college in the fall—but he knew he had to put the bets in anyway. If the bets won, Angelo would expect his money and Mickey would have no choice but to pay him.

At eight o’clock, Mickey called Artie to find out the line on the game. He had known Artie forever—at least ten years. When was growing up, his father used to take him to the racetrack almost every Saturday; Artie was one of the regulars at Aqueduct, hanging out on the ground floor under the tote board near the Bagel Nook. Artie wasn’t a bookie himself; he worked for a bookie, a guy named Nick whom Mickey had only met a couple of times. In junior high and high school, Mickey hustled football betting sheets for Artie in all of his classes. The sheets had pro and college games with odds stacked heavily in favor of the house. Artie paid Mickey 10 percent on all the profits, which usually meant about fifty bucks a week.

“Line’s twelve, forty-three,” Artie said. “Been drifting up all day. Everybody loves the ’Skins tonight.”

Artie said the phone lines were busy and he couldn’t talk long, so Mickey put in Angelo’s bets on the Falcons right away.

“Who is this Angelo, anyway?” Artie asked.

Mickey was embarrassed to tell Artie that he barely knew the guy.

“Friend of mine,” Mickey said.

“And he has this kind of dough?”

“Yeah,” Mickey said confidently.

“If Angelo loses, he knows he’s gotta pay by Friday.”

“He knows.”

“You sure?”

“Sure I’m sure.”

That night John Riggins rushed for one hundred yards, and the Washington Redskins beat the Atlanta Falcons 27–14. All of Angelo’s bets had lost, and now he owed Mickey’s bookie 470 bucks.

The next morning Mickey was in a shitty mood. When Mrs. Ruiz came in and said, “You got mussels?” Mickey didn’t feel like playing the game, and he snapped, “Of course we got mussels. How much you want?” Distracted the rest of the day, he screwed up a couple of orders—giving a lady fluke fillets instead of flounder fillets, giving some guy butterfish who’d asked for kingfish, filling a bag with mussels instead of clams. Mickey’s boss, Harry, warned Mickey to get his head out of his ass or he was going to send him on a “permanent vacation.”

Harry Giordano co-owned Vincent’s Fish Market with his brother Vincent, who lived in Florida. Harry had a huge beer gut, a thick handlebar mustache, and was one of the biggest morons Mickey had ever met. Mickey figured Vincent must have put up the money for the store, because there was no way Harry could have been smart enough to save up the money to start a business on his own. Besides, it was called Vincent’s Fish Market, not Harry’s Fish Market, or even Giordano’s Fish Market.

When Mickey started working at Vincent’s, he didn’t think he would last at the job for more than a couple of weeks. Mickey was sensitive about the size of his nose— sometimes he would stare at himself in the three-way mirrors in the dressing room at Alexander’s, amazed at how big it was—and Harry always made jokes about it, especially when other people were around. One day, a guy was placing an order, and Mickey was talking to someone else and didn’t hear what the guy was saying. Harry said, “Hey, Pinocchio, take this guy’s order.” Another time the same thing happened, and Harry said, “Hey, Big Bird, get your beak out of the clouds, will ya?” The worst part was that, since Harry was his boss, Mickey could never talk back to him. Mickey was dying to crack jokes about Harry’s big beer gut, but Mickey knew Harry would fire him if he did. Mickey could have found some other job, but he was making decent money at the fish store—seven-fifty an hour—and the location was convenient, only six blocks from his house. So every time Harry insulted him, Mickey just ignored it, hoping Harry would eventually get tired of being a dick and leave him alone.

Harry had no schedule. Usually he just came to the store to open and close, but once in a while he stuck around all day.

Today Harry left at about eleven and, since there were hardly any customers in the store, Mickey hung out most of the time, reading the
Daily News
and talking to Charlie.

At one o’clock, Charlie left for lunch. Then, at around one-fifteen, Angelo strolled in.

“The usual,” he said to Mickey. Then he said, “You know what? I think I’ll mix it up for once. How’re the fried-fish sandwiches?”

“Pretty good,” Mickey said.

“Yeah? Lemme get two of ’em,” Angelo said.

As Mickey fried the cod fillets on the skillet, he felt the sweat building on his back. He didn’t care if Angelo was in the mob and carried a gun. He wanted his 470 bucks.

“About those bets you made,” Mickey said to Angelo as he was putting the sandwiches in a paper bag. “You know your figure is up to four-seventy now.”

“Is that what it is?” Angelo said casually. “Now I see why you wanna be an accountant—you’re good at keeping track of numbers.”

Angelo blew his nose into a handkerchief then replaced the handkerchief inside the jacket pocket of his pin-striped suit.

Mickey smiled, only because he was nervous. He didn’t think there was anything funny about possibly getting stuck owing $470.

“Anyway,” Mickey said, “I’m kind of short on cash, and I was hoping I could, you know, see some of that money today.”

“I’ll get you the money,” Angelo said. “Don’t worry about it. What do you think, I’m a thief?”

Angelo glared at Mickey, then he took the bag of fish sandwiches and strutted toward the register. There were a couple of other people on line, but Mickey left them there and walked behind the counter to the front of the store, meeting Angelo.

“Sorry, Angelo, I really am, but I need to know like when you’re planning to give me that money. It’s not me, it’s my bookie. He makes me keep a two-hundred-fifty-dollar pay-or-collect number, and you’re already way over it. He said he needs his money by Friday.”

“Needs?” Angelo said, his face suddenly pink. “Did I hear you say
needs?
I don’t
need
to do anything except die. You got that?”

“Yes,” Mickey said.

“I said I’ll get you the money, didn’t I?”

“When?”

“When I give it to you,” Angelo said.

“No problem,” Mickey said. “I don’t care one way or another. It’s not me, it’s just my bookie, like I was saying. I mean to him you’re just a name, like any other name and—”

“You tell your bookie, Angelo Santoro makes up the rules when it comes to his bets, and nobody else. Before your bookie sees any money, I want a chance to get even. I’m going to the Knicks game Thursday night. Gimme a hundred times Knicks.”

“That’s another five hundred fifty dollars,” Mickey said.

“I know what the fuck it is,” Angelo said.

“I can’t put in any more action for you,” Mickey said.

“Can’t?” Angelo said. “I don’t think you heard me right, because I know you wouldn’t tell me ‘can’t.’ You
better
put that action in for me unless you wanna kiss your skinny little ass good-bye.”

ON THURSDAY NIGHT Mickey wasn’t in the mood to go bowling, but he had no choice. Mickey, Chris, and two of Chris’s friends, Ralph and Filippo, were in a money league at Gil Hodges Lanes in Canarsie. They each had put up fifty dollars at the start of the season, with a chance to win two hundred apiece if their team won the championship.

Mickey arrived at the bowling alley with his bowling ball, wearing his uniform—an extra-large white T-shirt with the team’s name, “The Studs,” written in script across the chest. Chris had come up with the team’s name, and Mickey always felt like a big idiot whenever he wore the shirt.

Chris, Filippo, and Ralph were waiting for Mickey by the shoe-rental counter. Chris and Filippo worked together, unloading and shelving groceries at Waldbaum’s on Nostrand and Kings Highway, and Ralph and Filippo were good friends; but Mickey was only friends with Chris.

Chris used to be a shy, quiet kid who never got into any trouble, then his father took off when he was ten years old. His mother, who’d always liked to drink, became an alcoholic, and Chris started getting into fights at school, getting suspended all the time. One night, during the summer after sixth grade, Chris and some other kids tried to rob a drugstore on Avenue U. One kid pulled a knife and slashed the owner’s face, and Chris was sent to juvenile detention for two years. When he came out he was still short, but he had big, bulging muscles and he became one of the most popular kids in the neighborhood. He dropped out of high school during eleventh grade when he got the job at Waldbaum’s.

Filippo was tall, about six-two, and he’d had the same military-style crew cut since he was a few years old. When he wasn’t wearing his Studs T-shirt, he dressed like a real
cugine,
in white tank tops and gold chains. Filippo and Mickey had never gotten along. In kindergarten, Filippo always teased Mickey and he convinced other kids not to like him. In elementary school, whenever Filippo passed Mickey in the hallway, he would slap him on the head or punch him in the arm as hard as he could, and he even beat him up a few times after school. In junior high, Filippo busted the lock on Mickey’s locker, just for the hell of it, and one day in gym class he snuck up behind Mickey and pulled down his gym shorts, and all the girls laughed. In high school, Filippo continued to pick on Mickey all the time, and Mickey was glad when Filippo dropped out of school to work with Chris.

Ralph was an older guy, around thirty. Mickey didn’t know much about him except that he had done time at Attica for armed robbery and had gotten out about two years ago. He was a big guy, with more fat than muscle, and he had clumps of black hair on his back and shoulders that spread out over the neckline of his Studs T-shirt. His lower lip always hung down, exposing the tip of his tongue and his crooked bottom teeth, and he made gurgling sounds in the back of his throat when he breathed. Ralph was friends with Filippo, so when Chris started hanging out with Filippo he started hanging out with Ralph too. Ralph had never said a word to Mickey, and Mickey had only heard him speak a few times, to Filippo and Chris. Mickey thought there was something seriously wrong with Ralph, but whenever Mickey asked Chris about it, Chris always said, “Nah, Ralph’s just like that.”

Mickey’s bowling average was 145, but he was so distracted in the first game, thinking about his trouble with Angelo, that he only bowled a 97. Afterward, Filippo said to him, “Hey, Mickey Mouse, what’s wrong, you got a dick up your ass?”

In the first two frames of the second game, Mickey didn’t get a single mark, and in the third frame he threw two gutter balls. After the second ball bounced off the alley, Filippo yelled, “That’s it! I don’t want this faggot on the team no more! He fuckin’ sucks!”

Mickey bowled two strikes on his next two balls and ended the game with a respectable 134. Between games, he went into the bathroom.

“You all right tonight, buddy?” Chris said, coming in behind him.

“Fine,” Mickey said.

“You sure?” Chris said. “I don’t know, you seem kind of out of it. What’s the matter, your old man acting up again?”

“Nah, it’s not that.” Mickey didn’t feel like talking about his problem with Angelo, but then he decided it might be good to get some advice.

So Mickey told Chris about the bets he’d put in for Angelo and how much Angelo had lost. When Mickey finished, Chris, who was trying to pop a zit on his forehead in the mirror above the sink, said, “Didn’t I tell you to be careful with that guy?”

“That’s not the point,” Mickey said. “The point is he lost this money, and I don’t know what the hell to do about it.”

“That’s a tough one,” Chris said. “I mean, on the one hand, the guy owes you the money. On the other hand, you can’t fuck with the mob. I guess you gotta pay.”

“But I don’t have that kind of money.”

“What do you mean? I thought you’ve been putting away.”

“No fuckin’ way, I’ve been saving that money for college since I was nine years old. I’m not giving it away now, not for this bullshit.”

“Then I guess you gotta hope Angelo comes through,” Chris said. “How’s my hair look?”

When Chris and Mickey left the bathroom, they passed two girls, walking in the opposite direction. They were wearing tight jeans and tube tops, and their hair was big and frizzy. The odor of their strong perfumes made Mickey nauseous.

“Jesus, you see the knockers on that short one?” Chris said. “What a fuckin’ set.”

“What if he doesn’t pay?” Mickey said.

“What? You don’t like that?” Chris said, still staring at the girl.

“I don’t have that kind of money to shell out,” Mickey said.

“You want to know what I’d do?” Chris said. “I’d sit down and talk to Artie. You know the guy a long time, right? Explain him the situation. Maybe you can work out some sort of payment plan or something. . . . Man, I gotta get laid tonight.”