Fake I.D.

the Aqueduct Racetrack parking lot in Ozone Park, Queens, sitting in my car, waiting for the gates to open. Leaving my apartment building this morning, I’d picked up a copy of the Racing Form and today nobody came over to bother me. I handicapped the whole card, letting the motor run to keep the inside of the car warm.

Walking into the track, I felt lucky.

I took the escalator up to the third floor. I once hit an exacta on the third floor for two Gs so I knew I had a much better chance of winning up there than on the first or second floors.

I won four hundred-plus dollars on the first race. I hit the second race and the daily double. Suddenly, I was up over a G. I lost the third race, hit the fourth and fifth, lost the sixth, and hit the seventh. I didn’t like anything in the later races so I left the track with a little over three grand in my wallet.

It was a great ride back to the city—blasting The Stones and The Who, banging out the beat on the dashboard.

Now I only needed seven grand to join the syndicate. Seven grand. I could make that in one or two more bets. I just had to be patient—wait for my spot. The key was I couldn’t just start betting wildly—I had to use my head. Over the next week I’d find a couple of solid bets—sure things. If I doubled my money two times that would give me more than enough to join.

It was a little after four o’clock when I crossed the Manhattan Bridge and arrived in Chinatown. The neighborhood was still packed with shoppers, but I found a parking spot right away, across the street from the pawn shop, proving that things were definitely going my way.

The old man was busy helping another customer so I hung out, looking at some Swiss Army knives in a display case. When the customer left I told the old man I was ready to buy back my jewelry.

I knew something was wrong when he acted like he couldn’t speak English.

“Look,” I said as slowly as I could. “I want my jewelry. Jew-el-ry. Can you un-der-stand what I’m say- ing?”

“Sorry, no jury,” he said. “Jury sold. Sorry, you leave.”

“Sold?” I said. “I think you must be making a mistake. I was the guy in here this morning—”

“No mistake,” he said. “Jury sold. You leave.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Don’t you remember me?”

The old man yelled something in Chinese.

“What’s wrong with you?” I said. “Why’re you yelling? I just want to know where my jewelry is.”

“What’s going on here?”

I looked over my shoulder and saw a young Chinese guy pointing a gun at my face. I didn’t know much about guns, but this one was big and silver and it looked like it could put a very big hole in my head.

“There seems to be a little misunderstanding here,” I said. “See, I dropped off some jewelry here this morning—”

“We sold your jewelry to some lady,” the young guy said.

“Why’d you do that?” I said. “Your boss promised me he wasn’t gonna sell it.”

“Well, he did. So why don’t you just get the hell out of our store before I call the cops or shoot you. You decide which.”

I stood there for a few seconds thinking, then I walked out. I kicked the side of my car as hard as I could, adding a new dent. I thought about hanging out until the kid went home, then going back into the store to talk to the old man again, but what good would that do? It wouldn’t get me Janene’s jewelry back.

I still had over an hour before I had to be at work so I went downtown to the OTB Teletheater on Water Street.

The Aqueduct card was over so they were showing races from Hollywood Park. It had to be an omen—the place I was going to wind up someday as a horse owner was on the TV screen. I bought a program. There was a horse going off at three to one, and it looked unbeatable. This was it, the spot I’d been waiting for. I bet the whole three grand, figuring when it won I’d get back twelve.

The race went off and I thought I must’ve bet on the wrong horse. The horse I bet on always went to the lead, but this pig was dead last. Then the announcer said that the jockey had pulled my horse up on the backstretch.

I couldn’t believe it—I was broke again. The money didn’t even have a chance to get warm in my wallet.

When I got to work I was still numb. I had no idea what I’d say when Janene came asking about her jewelry.

I poured a Sam Adams and sat at the bar. Jerry, one of the old cronies who came to O’Reilley’s every afternoon, was sitting next to me. He reeked of alcohol so I knew he was lit.

“Hey, Tommy,” he slurred, just noticing me next to him, even though I’d been sitting there a couple of minutes already. “How’s it goin’?”

The last thing I was in the mood for was to get into a conversation with some old drunk. I just nodded, staring straight ahead.

“I’m doin’ all right,” he said. “Seen better days, but who hasn’t? I guess that’s what getting older’s all about. But I can’t complain. I’m not dead—that’s one good thing.”

I didn’t say anything. I was still thinking about that race at Hollywood Park and how I had screwed everything up. Then Jerry said “So did you buy your box yet for the Super Bowl pool?” and I said to myself: the Super Bowl pool. Of course, the Super Bowl pool.

Seven

Every year O’Reilley’s had a Super Bowl pool. It was the same type of pool that just about every other bar in the city had. There were two columns of numbers, 0-9—one column for the AFC team, one column for the NFC team. For X number of dollars you got a box with two numbers that had to match the last digits of the score at the end of a quarter or, for the big prize, the end of the game. At O’Reilley’s, boxes went for five hundred bucks apiece so the total prize money would be fifty thousand dollars. The Super Bowl was still over a month away, but at least half the boxes were already full. Frank was putting the money in the bank as it came in, but a bunch of guys bought boxes last week and the money was in the safe—and the safe was right behind the bar.

As Jerry went on, talking about whatever, I was thinking about a robbery. Getting in would be easy, the only question was when I would do it. From watching Frank over the years I already knew the combination by heart. It was a good thing I always noticed things like that. I’d only seen Janene punch the code of her ATM card into the machine that one time and I still had the digits memorized.

The best time to do it would be late at night, just before closing time. It would be the only time I could do it because there were always people around the bar at other times and I didn’t have a key to the bar to come and go in the middle of the night. When I had the chance, I’d have to move fast. I couldn’t put it off much longer either. I saw Frank going into the safe a few nights ago and saw those stacks of bills, but it was only a matter of time until he moved the cash to the bank, if he hadn’t done it already.

The only thing that bothered me about my plan was that I’d be stealing from Frank. I knew he wouldn’t suspect me—he liked me too much to think I’d ever do something like that to him. Chances were, he’d blame Debbie or Gary—probably Debbie. But he was the only person in the world who’d always been there for me when I needed him and I really didn’t want to screw him over like that.

I went to the pay phone in the back of the bar and called home for my messages. There was one message:

“Hello, this is a message for Tommy Russo—Tommy, there was a very long beep on your machine so I hope you get this. This is Alan Schwartz, returning your call. So I hear you want to get involved in our little syndicate? Terrific. I don’t know how much Pete told you, but if you leave your address with my secretary I’ll FedEx you a copy of the contract we worked out. If you have any questions I’d be delighted to answer them. Unfortunately, I’ll be out of the office most of the day today. Maybe we could all get together early next week sometime and discuss a strategy, etcetera, okay? Oh, and you can give us your check then too. Okay? So let’s talk for sure next week and I hope you have a good weekend. Goodbye, Tommy.”

I hung up without saving the message. By eight o’clock there was already a nice-sized Friday night crowd in