The Bookmakers

by Zev Chafets

  “You ought to write a book yourself,” said Wolfowitz, snapping his fingers to signal a brainstorm. “Practical advice from a hardheaded tycoon. It could be a bestseller. Good advertising for the poultry business, too.”

  “Not a bad idea,” said Fassbinder. “Hell, if Iacocca and Perot can do it, why not me? I’ve even got a title. How to Lay the Golden Egg. Whaddya think of that one?”

  “By Harlan Fassbinder, the Prince of Poultry. I love it,” said Wolfowitz, glancing at Floutie. “If you’re serious I’ll get somebody to work with you on it, do the technical stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, just the writing,” said Wolfowitz.

  “Sure, why not? Maybe we’ll get Floutie here to do the scribbling. Save some money that way.”

  The publisher flushed and glared at Wolfowitz. “I think we’ll find another ghostwriter, if you don’t mind,” he said. “I have a few other duties—”

  “Duties my ass,” said Fassbinder. “Your duty is to keep my daughter smiling and not fuck up while I go on laying golden eggs. Ain’t that so, Wolfowitz?”

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” said Floutie, in a voice choked with anger. “I have guests to attend to.”

  “Go, go,” said Fassbinder, waving a veiny hand. “Go mingle, professor. Me and Wolfowitz got things to talk about.”

  Floutie organized his features into a semblance of a smile. “Happy Thanksgiving, Harlan. Arthur,” he said, walking off into the crowd.

  “Think I was too hard on the boy?” asked Fassbinder with a malicious grin. “Think I hurt Douggie’s feelings?”

  “I wouldn’t presume to say, sir,” said Wolfowitz, imitating the publisher’s rounded diction.

  “Goddamnit, you’re a pisser, Wolfowitz.” Fassbinder laughed. “Are you serious about that book or were you just pulling Floutie’s wee-wee?”

  “Little of both,” said Wolfowitz. “Frankly, I think writing a book would be a waste of your time. Even a bestseller would be chicken feed by your standards.”

  “Chicken feed, eh? You’re sounding more like a poultry man every day. You ever get sick of fooling around with authors and such, you come down to Little Rock and make some real money. Eventually somebody’s got to take over, and it sure as hell ain’t gonna be Floutie.”

  “It’s an interesting idea,” said Wolfowitz noncommittally.

  “Well, think on it,” said Fassbinder. “There’s a lot of satisfaction in the poultry business. Hell’s bells, they call Thanksgiving Turkey Day, don’t they? You never heard of a holiday called Book Day. See my point?”

  “Must give you a lot of pleasure, knowing how many Americans are eating birds you slaughtered,” said Wolfowitz dryly.

  “Pleasure don’t begin to cover it,” said the old man, his eyes glinting and his nostrils flaring with pride. “This kind of power makes a man feel like fucking Joe Stalin.”

  Fassbinder walked away, chortling audibly. Wolfowitz turned to look for Louise and bumped into Tommy Russo, who extended a pudgy hand. “Congratulations,” he said.

  “Congratulations?” For a moment he thought Tommy had overheard Fassbinder’s offer about the poultry business.

  “To all of us. On Mack’s novel.”

  “What about it?”

  “Andy Ligget called me this morning. He offered me a hundred thou for the movie rights.”

  “Who the hell’s Andy Ligget?”

  “An indie out in California. I’ve sold him a couple of things before.”

  “How the hell did he know about the Diary? The book’s only half finished. From what Mack tells me,” he added quickly.

  “Yeah, well, I got the word around,” Russo lied. “That’s what I get paid for. Anyway, it looks like we’ve got a winner.”

  “You do,” said Wolfowitz. “We don’t own a piece of the movie rights, you know that. You’re the one who should be happy.”

  “I am happy,” Russo lied again. When Ligget had called, Tommy had immediately understood that Herman Reggie was behind the deal; it would be the bookie, not he, who collected the commission. Still, he certainly wasn’t going to tell Wolfowitz that. He didn’t want it getting back to Mack that he was being represented by a gangster—a gangster with heavy Hollywood connections, evidently. Probably Ligget was paying back a gambling debt, too, Russo thought, giving Reggie a double-dip on what should have been his project. If word of the arrangement ever leaked out, Tommy knew he’d be the laughingstock of the entertainment industry.

  “How’s Mack taking it?” Wolfowitz asked.

  “He doesn’t know yet. I called out there earlier, but he wasn’t home. I can’t wait to tell him, though—he’s gonna go crazy.”

  “That’s for sure,” said Wolfowitz. “Are they paying up front?”

  “The whole amount. Those Hollywood guys throw money around like dirt.”

  “Wonder what he’s going to do with it?”

  Russo shrugged. “You know how Mack is with money. He’ll probably blow it.”

  “Well, like you said, he deserves some success after all these years,” said Wolfowitz. With any luck, Green would wind up not only humiliated and discredited, but in debt to a Hollywood studio that would certainly sue him when his plagiarism was discovered. The thought made him chuckle. “You know what this proves?” he asked.

  Russo shook his head. “What?”

  “That sometimes good things really do happen to good people.”

  Eighteen

  When Mack came down to breakfast the next morning, he found McClain sitting in the kitchen. “It’s past ten,” he said. “What’d they do, close the Elks?”

  “I’m going out to the mall today,” said McClain. “Buy Joyce a Christmas present.”

  “Little early for that, isn’t it?”

  “I like to shop early, before all the good merchandise gets snapped up,” said McClain. “How about coming along for the ride? I could use a second opinion.”

  “Well—”

  “Good. Drink your coffee and let’s get going. We finish early, I’ll have time for a few lanes this afternoon.”

  They drove out to Four Corners, a huge, confusing warren of upscale shops and chain boutiques in West Tarryton. McClain hummed “It’s a Grand Old Flag” over and over as he led Mack through the labyrinth, going in and out of jewelry stores and clothing shops, examining dozens of potential gifts and rejecting them all.

  “Jesus, buy something. We’re running out of stores,” said Mack.

  “What’s the matter, hotshot, you getting tired?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  McClain consulted his watch. “It’s 11:45,” he said.

  “So?”

  “Time for a bite to eat. Go over to the food court, get us some refreshments and I’ll save a table.”

  Mack went to one of the counters, picked up two large plastic cups of beer and two slices of pizza, and brought them over to the round metal table McClain was guarding. “Budweiser all right?” he asked.

  “King of beers,” said McClain, taking a swig. “So, hotshot, how’s your love life?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. It’s a simple question. What’s the matter, you embarrassed to admit you’re not making any headway with the local chicks?”

  “Hey, just last night I had drinks with a model who plays the harmonica and does it on the second date.” Mack laughed.

  McClain snorted. “You know how many ditzy beauty queens I went out with in my life? Before I met Joyce?”

  “Is it an odd or even number?”

  “My fair share, wise guy. More than my fair share, ask anybody. It was fun, too, until I found the real thing.” He shot Mack a look of such bald significance that he laughed out loud.

  “Is this when we discuss the birds and the bees? ’Cause if it is, I want to take some notes.”

  “I’m talking love here, not sex. Something you don’t know diddly-squat about.”

  “And you do?”

  “Goddamn right,” said McClain
. “The Queen of Sheba comes along, you’d still want something better.”

  “So I’m choosy, so what?”

  “Here’s so what: see that cotton-candy stand over there?” Green followed McClain’s finger with his eyes and nodded. “Okay, now look to your left, the Ward’s sign?” Mack nodded again. “Good. There’s about thirty feet between them, right?”

  “About that.”

  “Okay, that’s your field of vision, Ward’s and the booth. Don’t look beyond them in either direction.”

  Mack swung around in his seat, positioning himself for an unobstructed view. “Now what?”

  “Now I’m going to teach you a game. What you do is, start counting the women who walk by. Look ’em over good because you have to choose one of the next ten females to spend the rest of your life with.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Mack.

  “When I was about your age a guy I know, Maury Steiner, he’s dead now, heart attack right in the middle of a bowling tournament, he taught me this game. Called it the Game of Life. Just look at the women as they pass by, and when you see the one you want, say stop. Then go on counting until you get to ten. That way you see what you missed.”

  “What if I don’t want any of them?”

  “In that case you wind up with number ten,” said McClain. He gestured to a gangly teenager in a Tigers’ cap who skipped by holding the hand of a pimply boy. “There’s number one.”

  “Hey, she’s just a kid, she doesn’t count,” Mack protested.

  McClain shook his head decisively. “All females with jugs count,” he said.

  “Is that what it says in the official rule book? Jugs?”

  “Just concentrate, hotshot. The next Mrs. Green could be by any time.”

  A tall, well-built woman in her late twenties walked past pushing a baby stroller. Mack examined her closely. She had curly dark hair and a full, rounded figure, but her complexion was spotted and she wore a vacant expression. He was tempted, but decided to wait for something better. “Pass,” he said.

  “She looked pretty good to me,” said McClain.

  “I’ve got eight more to go,” said Mack, enjoying himself.

  “Six,” said McClain, pointing in the direction of two very fat women who looked like sisters. “Unless you’re into plush upholstery.”

  “No thanks,” said Mack. In quick succession he vetoed a mannish woman whose gigantic breasts swung loose in a white T-shirt, a pale teenager eating an ice-cream bar and an old lady shuffling along in a walker. Then there was a break in the crowd; for almost a minute no one came along.

  “Three more to go,” said McClain. “The tension mounts.” Mack was surprised to find that he actually did feel tense. He took a slug of beer and waited.

  “Here’s number eight,” said McClain, nodding in the direction of a thirtyish woman in a flowered skirt. She had slumped shoulders and unkempt hair the color of mud, but she was smiling to herself and there was something pleasant about her regular features. Once more Mack was tempted but he finally shook his head. “Naw, let’s go for broke,” he said.

  Number nine and number ten passed together, a stout woman in her fifties with white hair, walking arm in arm with an elderly lady who appeared to be her mother.

  “There she is,” McClain crowed. “The future Mrs. Mack Green.”

  Mack laughed. “Well, at least I didn’t get the one with the walker. Not a bad game, Big John. Maybe I’ll use it in the book.”

  “Use it in your life, hotshot,” said McClain. He took a swig of Bud, belched for punctuation and surreptitiously peeked at his watch. “Okay, you ready to try it again?”

  “Why me? It’s your turn.”

  “I already said stop when I met Joyce. You’re the one looking for Miss Right.”

  “No offense, but I don’t think I’m going to find her walking around the Four Corners mall.”

  “You never know,” McClain said. He nodded toward a buxom woman in a housedress who crossed their field of vision. “There’s number one.”

  “No thanks,” said Mack. “Okay, one more round.” He swiveled in his chair for a better view and quickly rejected three more shoppers. “Not much of a selection here. Maybe we should try—”

  “Try what?” asked McClain.

  Mack seized his arm. “John, do you see that woman over there, in front of the record store?”

  “The blond with the long legs? She’s a knockout,” said McClain.

  “She looks just like Linda Birney.”

  “Is that right?” said McClain, but Mack didn’t hear him; he was concentrating on the woman, who was about fifty feet away, looking into the window of the record store. “Maybe it’s her.”

  “Huh?”

  “I said, maybe it’s her,” McClain repeated.

  “Couldn’t be,” said Mack. “She’s too young.”

  The woman turned from the display window and began walking slowly toward the food court. She moved like Linda, head up and cocked slightly to the side, her stride, even in high heels, unhurried and easy. As she came closer Mack fought the impulse to jump up and rush over to her. He made himself remember all the times he had felt foolish after mistaking women in the street in New York for Linda.

  “She’s coming this way,” said McClain. “What number you on?”

  “Number?” Mack felt his excitement grow with every step the woman took. She didn’t look quite so young now, early thirties maybe—Linda could look that young. She wore an expensive black silk business suit that revealed the shape of her hips. Linda had been thinner, willowy, but she had been a girl then; this woman had the kind of body Linda’s body could have become. And then, when she was no more than fifteen feet away, she paused, looked over in the general direction of the food court and grinned her unmistakable, lopsided, sexy-pirate grin.

  Mack grabbed McClain’s arm. “That’s her!” he whispered. “That’s Linda! What do I do now?”

  “Go over and say hello,” said McClain. “Unless you want to keep waiting, see if someone better comes by.”

  “What if she doesn’t remember me?”

  “She’ll remember you,” McClain said, pushing him to his feet. The glee on his face told Mack that this was not a guess.

  “You set this up,” he said, accusingly.

  “Quit stalling,” said McClain. “Go get her.”

  Mack rose, gave McClain’s arm a squeeze and walked toward Linda. McClain watched as he approached her, saw her face light up and smiled when she pulled Mack into her arms for a long embrace. The hell with Dr. Sigmund Ephron, he thought; Dr. Big John McClain had come up with the right medicine. It hadn’t been easy finding Linda Birney, but seeing them together, standing close and talking intensely, their arms still wrapped loosely around one another, McClain felt an overwhelming sense that now everything would be all right with Mack. He couldn’t wait to get home and tell Joyce all about it.

  At a nearby table, a middle-aged man in a gray cardigan watched the scene, too. He didn’t know why McClain was blowing his nose, didn’t know who the woman was or why Mack Green was kissing her in the middle of the mall. He didn’t particularly care, either, although he’d find out if he was asked to. For that matter, he didn’t know why he had been asked to keep an eye on Green. It was just a job, and if the boss didn’t want him involved in the big picture, that didn’t bother him. Arlen Nashua had long since come to terms with the undeniable fact that he was not a big-picture kind of guy.

  Nineteen

  “What if I had just bumped into you on the street?” Mack asked Linda. “Would you have recognized me?” They were together at the Markham Inn, having dinner in a quiet corner of the room. In high school, the Markham had been considered an elegant place, Oriole’s answer to the Four Seasons, with a real continental chef from Quebec and candles on the tables. Linda had smiled when he suggested it tonight and now he knew why—it seemed like a pavilion in Disneyland: The Midwest Fake French Food and Corny Atmosphere pavilion. Mack didn’t care, though; he w
as barely aware of his surroundings.

  “You were my first love,” said Linda, in a tone somewhere between sincerity and self-mockery. “Girls don’t forget their first love.”

  “Yeah, right,” muttered Mack, afraid to take her seriously.

  “Tell me about you, Mackinac. About your glamorous life.”

  “Glamorous? I guess if you look at it from the outside, my life does seem glamorous, doesn’t it?”

  “You’ve developed a little New York accent, you know? Maybe not an accent exactly, but a way of talking. I used to hear it a lot in LA. It’s not how I remember you sounding.”

  “You remember me that well? The way I talked?”

  “I should. You talked enough,” she said, giving him her crooked smile.

  “You should have married me,” Mack blurted. The thought had been running through his mind all evening.

  “Maybe,” she replied. “I’ve wondered about it over the years.”

  “You have?” She nodded and looked at him evenly; he noticed the flecks of gray in her dark-green eyes. “Then why didn’t you? We were perfect for each other.”

  “Nobody’s perfect for anybody, especially at that age,” she said. “Besides, I thought I could do better.” She saw the hurt expression on his face and put her hand on his. “I was eighteen years old, Mack. And I didn’t trust you.”

  “Why not? I never lied to you. It’s a unique distinction, by the way.”

  “That’s why, that kind of comment. You were always saying things like that, making yourself sound so distant and cynical. I suppose it was your way of trying to act grown-up—Jesus, do you realize we were just about my son Teddy’s age?—but I didn’t know how to handle it. And you didn’t believe in love.”

  “I was in love with you.”

  “You said love was just a literary device.”

  “And you believed me? Shit, I didn’t mean 90 percent of what I used to say back then.” He paused and grinned. “These days it’s around 65.”

  Linda laughed. “You want to scare me all over again?”