Free The Bookmakers by Zev Chafets Page B

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. Forthat 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